Chat Completions in Ollama
From the Ollama cheat sheet · REST API · verified Jul 2026
Chat Completions
Use the /api/chat endpoint for multi-turn conversations.
bash
# Chat with message history
curl http://localhost:11434/api/chat -d '{
"model": "llama3.2",
"messages": [
{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant."},
{"role": "user", "content": "What is Docker?"}
],
"stream": false
}'💡 The chat endpoint manages conversation history via the messages array
⚡ Roles are "system", "user", and "assistant" — same as OpenAI format
📌 Set "format": "json" to force the model to respond with valid JSON
🟢 Include the full message history in each request for context continuity
apichatrest
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