skills/vertex-ai-api-dev/references/safety.md

Safety Settings and Responsible AI

You can adjust safety settings to control the thresholds for harmful content generation. By default, Vertex AI applies standard safety filters.

Adjusting Safety Thresholds

from google import genai
from google.genai import types

client = genai.Client()
response = client.models.generate_content(
    model="gemini-3-flash-preview",
    contents="Write a list of 5 disrespectful things that I might say to the universe after stubbing my toe in the dark.",
    config=types.GenerateContentConfig(
        system_instruction="Be as mean as possible.",
        safety_settings=[
            types.SafetySetting(
                category=types.HarmCategory.HARM_CATEGORY_DANGEROUS_CONTENT,
                threshold=types.HarmBlockThreshold.BLOCK_LOW_AND_ABOVE,
            ),
            types.SafetySetting(
                category=types.HarmCategory.HARM_CATEGORY_HARASSMENT,
                threshold=types.HarmBlockThreshold.BLOCK_LOW_AND_ABOVE,
            ),
            types.SafetySetting(
                category=types.HarmCategory.HARM_CATEGORY_HATE_SPEECH,
                threshold=types.HarmBlockThreshold.BLOCK_LOW_AND_ABOVE,
            ),
            types.SafetySetting(
                category=types.HarmCategory.HARM_CATEGORY_SEXUALLY_EXPLICIT,
                threshold=types.HarmBlockThreshold.BLOCK_LOW_AND_ABOVE,
            ),
        ]
    ),
)

# Response will be `None` if it is blocked.
if response.text is None:
    print(f"Content Blocked. Finish Reason: {response.candidates[0].finish_reason}")
else:
    print(response.text)

# Inspect safety ratings for each category
for rating in response.candidates[0].safety_ratings:
    print(f'Category: {rating.category}')
    print(f'Is Blocked: {rating.blocked}')
    print(f'Probability: {rating.probability}')
    print(f'Severity: {rating.severity}')