Azure OpenAI v1 API: Stop Chasing Monthly API Versions, Start Building

TL;DR: Azure OpenAI’s new v1 API (available since August 2025) eliminates the need to specify new api-versions each month , letting you focus on shipping instead of dependency management. It supports the standard OpenAI client with minimal code changes and includes automatic token refresh without a separate Azure-specific client . For .NET teams, this means cleaner code, faster feature adoption, and less CI/CD churn.

The Problem: API Version Hell

If you’ve shipped Azure OpenAI integrations with .NET, you know the drill. Previously, Azure OpenAI received monthly updates of new API versions, and taking advantage of new features required constantly updating code and environment variables with each new API release . Every month, a new version drops. Your team updates api-version=2024-10-21 to 2024-11-01. Rinse, repeat. It’s not broken, but it’s friction.

Worse, Azure OpenAI required the extra step of using Azure specific clients which created overhead when migrating code between OpenAI and Azure OpenAI . You’d write one integration for OpenAI’s API, then rewrite it for Azure’s variant. Portable? Not really.

The Solution: v1 API with OpenAI Client Parity

Starting in August 2025, the next generation v1 Azure OpenAI APIs add support for ongoing access to the latest features with no need to specify new api-versions each month, with a faster API release cycle and new features launching more frequently .

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Before (Old API Pattern)

// Monthly version chasing
var client = new AzureOpenAIClient(
    new Uri("https://myresource.openai.azure.com/"),
    new AzureKeyCredential(apiKey),
    new AzureOpenAIClientOptions { ApiVersion = "2024-10-21" }
);

After (v1 API Pattern)

// No version management needed
var credential = new ApiKeyCredential(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY"));
var clientOptions = new OpenAIClientOptions 
{ 
    Endpoint = new Uri("https://YOUR-RESOURCE-NAME.openai.azure.com/openai/v1/") 
};
var client = new OpenAIClient(credential, clientOptions);

var response = await client.GetResponsesClient("gpt-4.1-nano").CreateResponseAsync(
    userInputText: "Explain quantum computing in simple terms"
);
Console.WriteLine(response.Value.GetOutputText());

Notice: no api-version parameter. api-version is no longer a required parameter with the v1 GA API . You use the standard OpenAI client, not AzureOpenAI. This is huge for code portability.

Token Refresh: One Less Dependency

Handling automatic token refresh was previously handled through use of the AzureOpenAI() client. The v1 API removes this dependency, by adding automatic token refresh support to the OpenAI() client .

For production workloads using Entra ID:

// Token refresh is automatic—no separate Azure SDK dependency
var tokenProvider = new DefaultAzureCredential();
var client = new OpenAIClient(
    new Uri("https://YOUR-RESOURCE-NAME.openai.azure.com/openai/v1/"),
    tokenProvider
);

Your CI/CD pipeline gets simpler. Your dependency graph shrinks. Your team spends less time on version bumps and more time on features.

The Practical Impact

No monthly churn: New models and features roll out to v1 automatically. Your code doesn’t need touching.
Easier testing & staging: Use the same client code locally (against OpenAI) and in production (against Azure). Swap endpoints, not entire client libraries.
Faster onboarding: New team members see one pattern, not two. Less cognitive load.
Cleaner NuGet dependencies: Fewer Azure-specific packages to manage.

One Caveat

For the initial v1 Generally Available (GA) API launch, only a subset of the inference and authoring API capabilities are supported. All GA features are supported for use in production, and more capabilities will be rapidly added soon . So if you’re using bleeding-edge features (e.g., certain preview extensions), you may still need the dated API versions temporarily. But for mainstream chat completions, embeddings, and reasoning models—you’re golden.

Getting Started

Rapidly deploy an Azure OpenAI instance with a GPT-5-mini model using a single CLI command. The Azure OpenAI Starter Kit includes OpenAI SDK for Python, TypeScript, Go, .NET and Java examples using the Responses API, with Infrastructure as Code deployment and production-ready client examples featuring secure EntraID authentication .

azd up

That’s it. Your resource is live, your model is deployed, and you’re ready to call it with the new v1 API.