---
title: "Create your first LLM playground"
url: "/docs/tutorials/first_playground"
canonical_url: "https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/tutorials/first_playground"
type: "docs"
last_updated: "2026-10-04"
summary: "Create a playground to evaluate multiple LLM Providers in less than 10 minutes. If you want to see this in prod, check out our website."
related:
  - "/docs/tutorials/installation"
  - "/docs/tutorials/text_completion"
---
# Create your first LLM playground

> Index of all LiteLLM docs: https://docs.litellm.ai/llms.txt


Create a playground to **evaluate multiple LLM Providers in less than 10 minutes**. If you want to see this in prod, check out our [website](https://litellm.ai/).

**What will it look like?**

**How will we do this?**: We'll build <u>the server</u> and connect it to our template frontend, ending up with a working playground UI by the end!

:::info

 Before you start, make sure you have followed the [environment-setup](./installation) guide. Please note, that this tutorial relies on you having API keys from at least 1 model provider (E.g. OpenAI). 
:::

## 1. Quick start 

Let's make sure our keys are working. Run this script in any environment of your choice (e.g. [Google Colab](https://colab.research.google.com/#create=true)).

🚨 Don't forget to replace the placeholder key values with your keys!

```bash
uv add litellm
```

```python
from litellm import completion

## set ENV variables
os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = "openai key" ## REPLACE THIS
os.environ["COHERE_API_KEY"] = "cohere key" ## REPLACE THIS
os.environ["AI21_API_KEY"] = "ai21 key" ## REPLACE THIS

messages = [{ "content": "Hello, how are you?","role": "user"}]

# openai call
response = completion(model="gpt-5.6-luna", messages=messages)

# cohere call
response = completion("command-nightly", messages)

# ai21 call
response = completion("j2-mid", messages)
```

## 2. Set-up Server

Let's build a basic Flask app as our backend server. We'll give it a specific route for our completion calls.  

**Notes**:
* 🚨 Don't forget to replace the placeholder key values with your keys!
* `completion_with_retries`: LLM API calls can fail in production. This function wraps the normal litellm completion() call with [tenacity](https://tenacity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) to retry the call in case it fails. 

LiteLLM specific snippet:

```python 
import os
from litellm import completion_with_retries 

## set ENV variables
os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = "openai key" ## REPLACE THIS
os.environ["COHERE_API_KEY"] = "cohere key" ## REPLACE THIS
os.environ["AI21_API_KEY"] = "ai21 key" ## REPLACE THIS

@app.route('/chat/completions', methods=["POST"])
def api_completion():
    data = request.json
    data["max_tokens"] = 256 # By default let's set max_tokens to 256
    try:
        # COMPLETION CALL
        response = completion_with_retries(**data)
    except Exception as e:
        # print the error
        print(e)
    return response
```

The complete code:

```python 
import os
from flask import Flask, jsonify, request
from litellm import completion_with_retries 

## set ENV variables
os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = "openai key" ## REPLACE THIS
os.environ["COHERE_API_KEY"] = "cohere key" ## REPLACE THIS
os.environ["AI21_API_KEY"] = "ai21 key" ## REPLACE THIS

app = Flask(__name__)

# Example route
@app.route('/', methods=['GET'])
def hello():
    return jsonify(message="Hello, Flask!")

@app.route('/chat/completions', methods=["POST"])
def api_completion():
    data = request.json
    data["max_tokens"] = 256 # By default let's set max_tokens to 256
    try:
        # COMPLETION CALL
        response = completion_with_retries(**data)
    except Exception as e:
        # print the error
        print(e)

    return response

if __name__ == '__main__':
    from waitress import serve
    serve(app, host="0.0.0.0", port=4000, threads=500)
```

### Let's test it
Start the server:
```bash
python main.py
```

Run this curl command to test it:
```curl
curl -X POST localhost:4000/chat/completions \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
  "model": "gpt-5.6-luna",
  "messages": [{
    "content": "Hello, how are you?",
    "role": "user"
  }]
}'
```

This is what you should see

[Image: python_code_sample_2]

## 3. Connect to our frontend template

### 3.1 Download template

For our frontend, we'll use [Streamlit](https://streamlit.io/) - this enables us to build a simple python web-app.

Let's download the playground template we (LiteLLM) have created: 

```zsh
git clone https://github.com/BerriAI/litellm_playground_fe_template.git
```

### 3.2 Run it

Make sure our server from [step 2](#2-set-up-server) is still running at port 4000

:::info

 If you used another port, no worries - just make sure you change [this line](https://github.com/BerriAI/litellm_playground_fe_template/blob/411bea2b6a2e0b079eb0efd834886ad783b557ef/app.py#L7) in your playground template's app.py
:::

Now let's run our app: 

```zsh
cd litellm_playground_fe_template && streamlit run app.py
```

If you're missing Streamlit - just uv add it (or check out their [installation guidelines](https://docs.streamlit.io/library/get-started/installation#install-streamlit-on-macoslinux))

```zsh
uv add streamlit
```

This is what you should see: 
[Image: streamlit_playground]

## Congratulations 🚀 

You've created your first LLM Playground - with the ability to call 50+ LLM APIs. 

Next Steps: 
* [Check out the full list of LLM Providers you can now add](https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/providers)

## Related pages

- [Set up environment](https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/tutorials/installation.md)
- [Using Text Completion Format - with Completion()](https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/tutorials/text_completion.md)