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[Bug]: GPT-5.6 models fail with 400 when combining function tools and reasoning_effort (Chat Completions) #14231

Description

@jomspk

What happened?

Using a GPT-5.6 model (e.g. gpt-5.6-terra) on the OpenAI endpoint with an Agent that has tools (MCP servers, or any function tools) and a reasoning effort set fails on every request with:

Something went wrong. Here's the specific error message we encountered:
An error occurred while processing the request: 400 Function tools with reasoning_effort
are not supported for gpt-5.6-terra in /v1/chat/completions. To use function tools,
use /v1/responses or set reasoning_effort to 'none'.

Expected: the request succeeds — reasoning and function tools should work together on GPT-5.6 models, as they do on the Responses API.

Why it happens: OpenAI changed behavior for GPT-5.6 models: /v1/chat/completions now rejects requests that combine function tools with reasoning_effort other than 'none' (OpenAI community report). LibreChat defaults to Chat Completions (useResponsesApi defaults to false) and sends flat reasoning_effort there (packages/api/src/endpoints/openai/llm.ts, applyReasoningConfigllmConfig.reasoning_effort). The reasoning-model regex /\b(o[13]|gpt-5)(?!\.|-chat)(?:-|$)/ intentionally excludes dotted versions, so gpt-5.6-* gets no special handling, and nothing switches these models to the Responses API automatically (only web_search does that today).

Users can work around it per conversation/agent by manually enabling the "Use Responses API" toggle, but out of the box every GPT-5.6 + tools + reasoning request fails.

Version Information

Reproduced on a v0.8.6-based deployment. Confirmed by code inspection and unit tests that the code path is unchanged on current main (cf9a426).

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Configure the OpenAI endpoint with a GPT-5.6 model (e.g. gpt-5.6-terra)
  2. Create an Agent using that model, attach any tool (e.g. an MCP server), and set Reasoning Effort to any value other than none (leaving the "Use Responses API" toggle untouched/off)
  3. Send any message
  4. The request fails with the 400 error above

What browsers are you seeing the problem on?

No response (server-side issue, browser-independent)

Relevant log output

400 Function tools with reasoning_effort are not supported for gpt-5.6-terra in /v1/chat/completions. To use function tools, use /v1/responses or set reasoning_effort to 'none'.

Screenshots

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