vercel/ai · error · NoSuchModelError

imageModel

Error message

imageModel

What it means

The DeepSeek provider does not support image models; its imageModel factory unconditionally throws NoSuchModelError with modelType 'imageModel'. DeepSeek offers no image generation API, so the stub enforces that contract loudly.

Source

Thrown at packages/deepseek/src/deepseek-provider.ts:120

      baseURL,
      headers: getHeaders,
      fetch: options.fetch,
    });

  const provider = (modelId: DeepSeekChatModelId) =>
    createLanguageModel(modelId);

  provider.specificationVersion = 'v4' as const;
  provider.languageModel = createLanguageModel;
  provider.chat = createLanguageModel;
  provider.files = createFiles;

  provider.embeddingModel = (modelId: string) => {
    throw new NoSuchModelError({ modelId, modelType: 'embeddingModel' });
  };
  provider.textEmbeddingModel = provider.embeddingModel;
  provider.imageModel = (modelId: string) => {
    throw new NoSuchModelError({ modelId, modelType: 'imageModel' });
  };

  return provider;
}

export const deepSeek = createDeepSeek();

View on GitHub (pinned to 69428b1f8b)

Solutions

1. Use an image-capable provider for generateImage (e.g. @ai-sdk/openai with dall-e/gpt-image, @ai-sdk/google, @ai-sdk/amazon-bedrock).
2. Configure a dedicated image provider separate from the chat provider.
3. Guard image-generation code paths to check provider support before resolving the model.

Example fix

// before
await generateImage({ model: deepseek.imageModel('img'), prompt });

// after
import { createOpenAI } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
const openai = createOpenAI({ apiKey: openaiKey });
await generateImage({ model: openai.image('gpt-image-1'), prompt });

function supportsImages(provider: unknown): boolean {
  return typeof (provider as any)?.imageModel === 'function' &&
    !/deepseek/i.test((provider as any)?.provider ?? '');
}

function isImageCapable(p: any): p is { imageModel: (id: string) => unknown } {
  return typeof p?.imageModel === 'function';
}

try {
  await generateImage({ model: provider.imageModel(id), prompt });
} catch (e) {
  if (NoSuchModelError.isInstance(e) && e.modelType === 'imageModel') {
    throw new Error('DeepSeek cannot generate images; use an image provider.');
  }
  throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling generateImage() with a DeepSeek model, or calling deepseek.imageModel('some-id') directly.

Common situations: Generic multi-provider pipelines that route image generation to whichever provider is configured, or developers exploring the provider API assuming image support exists.

Related errors

• AI_NoSuchModelError
• ElevenLabs does not provide image models
• No such imageModel: ${modelId}
• imageModel
• imageModel

AI-assisted analysis of vercel/ai@69428b1f8b (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c197a5edeb4f4f3b. Report an issue: GitHub.