# xAI (Grok) (/providers/xai)



xAI Grok is the provider to reach for when a request needs **live web-search grounding** or a
fast, cost-optimized frontier response. Grok-3 covers frontier reasoning and live-web-grounded tasks;
Grok-3 Mini is the cost-sensitive routing target for high-volume work where full Grok-3 capability is
not required. It is the only first-class provider here that reports `live_search_supported`.

It is available on both the [managed-provider](/execution/managed-providers) and
[BYOK](/execution/byok) profiles. Requests that resolve here report `Agent-Resolved-Provider: xai`.

## Caching economics [#caching-economics]

xAI caches a stable context across consecutive requests, billed at a **75% read discount**. Monitor
the cache hit rate via the usage metadata, and keep the stable prefix consistent across calls so the
cached context stays warm.

| Fact                     | Value                     |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------- |
| Cache type               | Explicit (cached context) |
| Minimum cacheable prefix | 1,024 tokens              |
| Cache-read discount      | 75%                       |
| Default TTL              | 300 seconds (5 min)       |
| Extended TTL             | 3,600 seconds (1h)        |
| Cached-token reporting   | Yes                       |
| Manual cache clear       | Not supported             |

## No Batch tier [#no-batch-tier]

xAI has **no Batch API** (`batch_api_supported` is false). Route background and batch-class work to a
provider that does have one - [OpenAI](/providers/openai),
[Anthropic](/providers/anthropic), or [Gemini](/providers/gemini) - and keep xAI
for the interactive and live-grounded traffic it is best at. xAI exposes a single `standard` service
tier.

## Live search [#live-search]

Grok supports real-time web-search grounding, which lets a request reach for up-to-date information
without a separate retrieval pipeline. This is gated behind the `live_search_supported` manifest flag,
so the broker only routes grounding-dependent work here.

## When the broker routes here [#when-the-broker-routes-here]

<CardGroup cols="2">
  <Card title="Live-grounded reasoning" icon="globe">
    Tasks that need current web information inline, where a Perplexity-style grounding step would
    otherwise be required.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Cost-sensitive frontier" icon="gauge">
    Grok-3 Mini for high-volume interactive work where a frontier model is needed but cost per token
    matters more than maximum capability.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Fast lightweight responses" icon="bolt">
    Grok-3 Mini is competitive with commodity small frontier models on time-to-first-token.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Warm stable prefixes" icon="repeat">
    Long stable contexts reused across consecutive calls take the 75% cached-context discount.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## At a glance [#at-a-glance]

| Capability           | Value          |
| -------------------- | -------------- |
| Context window       | 131,072 tokens |
| Multimodal input     | Yes            |
| Live search          | Yes            |
| Batch API            | No             |
| Dedicated deployment | No             |
| Service tiers        | standard       |
| Data retention       | standard       |
| Regions              | us             |

Manifest revision `cap_2026_06_09`. The [capability manifest](/concepts/capability-manifests) is what
tells the broker xAI is the only first-class option for live-grounded work and that background work
must route elsewhere.