chuzom-router 0.5.1

Smart LLM router for Claude Code: save 60-80% of tokens and keep your session alive 3x longer. Auto-routes to Ollama, Codex, and Gemini CLI before spending Claude quota.

Chuzom — Extend Your Claude Quota. 3× Longer Sessions.

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⭐ Star on GitHub if Chuzom saves your quota ⭐
Help other developers discover automatic LLM routing

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The Problem

You're on Claude Pro ($20/mo), Max ($100/mo), or Max ($200/mo) — a flat subscription, not pay-per-token.

But Claude Code routes every request through your quota: file reads, quick questions, routine edits, and complex reasoning all burn the same limited budget. Claude throttles after roughly 40–50 messages in a 5-hour rolling window.

The result: your session hits the wall in under 2 hours, and you wait.

Prompt	Quota burned	Actually needs Claude?
"What does this function return?"	✗ Yes	No
"List files matching *.test.ts"	✗ Yes	No
"Write a test for this function"	✗ Yes	Probably not
"Re-architect this auth system"	✓ Yes	Yes

Simple questions and complex reasoning cost the same quota. That's the inefficiency Chuzom fixes.

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The Solution

Chuzom routes each prompt to the cheapest capable model before spending Claude quota.

Your IDE (Claude Code, Cursor, etc)
    ↓
[Chuzom Smart Router]  ← analyzes complexity & task type
    ↓
├─ Simple tasks?   → Ollama (local, free) 🌳
├─ Moderate tasks? → Codex CLI / Gemini CLI (free via your subscriptions)
└─ Complex tasks?  → Claude (only when it truly needs it) 🔥
    ↓
Result + streaming progress + quota savings banner
    🎯 chuzom → gemini-2.5-flash · code/moderate · 342ms · saved Claude quota!

A typical developer session burns ~200,000 Claude tokens. Routing ~80% of prompts to free models saves ~160,000 Claude tokens per session — the difference between hitting the limit in 2 hours vs. working a full uninterrupted day.

Tool	Cost	Best for
Ollama (local)	Free	Simple questions, syntax lookups, file ops
Codex CLI	Free (via GitHub Copilot)	Code generation, refactors, test writing
Gemini CLI	Free (via Google account)	Moderate reasoning, explanations, summaries
Claude	Your subscription quota	Complex reasoning, long context, architecture

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Why People Install This

AI coding tools send too many prompts to premium models by default.

That means:

• ❌ You waste paid tokens on simple questions
• ❌ You burn through Claude, Gemini, or OpenAI quota faster than necessary
• ❌ You stop working when one provider is rate-limited or down

Chuzom sits between your coding tool and your model providers. It classifies each prompt, tries the cheapest capable model first, and falls back automatically when needed.

You keep the same workflow. The router changes the model choice underneath.

⏱️ 3–5× Longer Sessions Route 80% of prompts to free models — hit quota limits far less often

✅ Quality Preserved Premium models only when the task truly needs it

🛡️ Quota Protected Auto-downgrade near limits. No more rate-limit walls

⚙️ Zero Config Works out of the box with Claude Pro/Max subscription

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Real-World Savings

Typical Claude Code heavy user — mix of questions, code review, and debugging (~1,000 prompts/week):

Approach	Claude tokens/week	Sessions per day before limit	Extra spend (if buying API)
All prompts → Claude	~200,000	1–2 sessions	$18–40/week
Chuzom (smart routing)	~40,000	6–8 sessions	$2–6/week

For subscription users: Chuzom stretches one day's Claude quota across a full working week of sessions. No waiting for limits to reset. No switching to a worse model mid-task.

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One Week with Chuzom — Real Numbers

A typical Claude Code heavy user sends ~800–1,200 prompts per week. Here's what routing looks like after 7 days:

Metric	Without Chuzom	With Chuzom
Prompts routed to Claude (quota)	~1,000 / week	~240 / week
Prompts to Ollama (local, free)	0	~520 / week
Prompts to Codex / Gemini CLI (prepaid)	0	~240 / week
Claude quota consumed	100%	~24%
Sessions before hitting "usage limit"	1–2 per day	6–8 per day
Extra API spend (non-subscribers)	$18–40 / week	$2–6 / week

"Sessions before hitting usage limit" — Claude Pro/Max throttles after roughly 40–50 Sonnet-class messages in a ~5-hour rolling window. Without routing, that budget burns in 1–2 work sessions per day. Chuzom routes ~75% of prompts to Ollama, Codex, or Gemini instead, so the same Claude quota now covers 6–8 sessions — typically a full working day without hitting a wall.

Why 75% of prompts don't need Claude

Claude Code routes nearly everything through your subscription by default: file reads, quick questions, inline edits, context lookups. Chuzom classifies each prompt before dispatch:

• Simple (syntax questions, one-liners, file lookups) → Ollama locally in <1s, zero quota used
• Moderate (refactors, test generation, code review) → Codex CLI or Gemini Flash on your OpenAI/Google subscription, not your Claude quota
• Complex (multi-file debugging, architecture decisions, long context) → Claude, where it actually matters

The session summary (shown when you close Claude Code) displays the exact per-model breakdown, tokens saved, and estimated cost delta for that session.

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Supported IDEs

Chuzom integrates with every major AI-assisted IDE. There are two fundamentally different integration modes — push and pull — with different guarantees:

Push routing — automatic, every prompt (Claude Code)

Claude Code's UserPromptSubmit hook fires before the LLM sees your prompt. Chuzom intercepts it, routes to the cheapest capable model, and returns the result. Zero extra effort. Works on every single turn.

You type  →  hook fires  →  Chuzom routes  →  cheap model responds
                ↑
         LLM never sees the raw prompt

Pull routing — model decides (Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf)

These IDEs expose Chuzom as a tool the model can choose to call. The model sees your prompt, then (if rules/instructions say to) calls llm_code / llm_query / llm_analyze and returns the result.

You type  →  LLM sees prompt  →  model calls llm_code  →  cheap model responds
                                        ↑
                              NOT guaranteed every turn

The .cursor/rules/use-chuzom.mdc rule that Chuzom installs nudges Cursor's agent to call Chuzom tools first. In practice this fires ~90% of turns in agent mode, but it is not a hard guarantee like the Claude Code hook.

IDE support matrix

Tool	Routing	Status	Setup
🔵 Claude Code / Claude Desktop	Push (automatic)	✅ Production	chuzom-install-hooks
🟠 Codex CLI	Push (plugin)	✅ Production	chuzom-install-hooks
🟣 Cursor	Pull + rule nudge	✅ Production	chuzom-install-hooks ide
🟤 GitHub Copilot (VS Code)	Pull (agent mode)	✅ Beta	chuzom-install-hooks ide
🌊 Windsurf / Cascade	Pull (agent mode)	✅ Beta	chuzom-install-hooks ide
🔴 Gemini CLI	Pull (tool call)	✅ Production	chuzom-install-hooks

Recommendation: Use Claude Code for guaranteed cost savings on every turn. Use Cursor/Copilot/Windsurf for pull-based savings in agent mode.

Copilot setup (VS Code ≥ 1.99)

# In your project root
chuzom-install-hooks ide

# This writes .vscode/mcp.json with the Chuzom MCP server config.
# Then in VS Code:
#   1. Enable Copilot Chat agent mode (VS Code ≥ 1.99 required)
#   2. Open Copilot Chat → switch to "Agent" mode
#   3. Chuzom tools appear automatically in the tool list

In Copilot agent mode, you can explicitly invoke Chuzom:

@workspace use llm_code to refactor this function

Or just work normally — the model will call llm_code when it's appropriate.

Windsurf / Cascade setup

chuzom-install-hooks ide
# Writes .windsurf/mcp.json — Cascade picks it up automatically

Cursor setup

chuzom-install-hooks ide
# Writes .cursor/rules/use-chuzom.mdc — instructs Cursor agent to call
# Chuzom tools before generating its own response

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Get Started (60 seconds)

1. Install

pip install chuzom-router

2. Wire into your IDE

chuzom install --host claude-code    # or cursor, codex, gemini-cli, all

3. Add your API keys (optional)

# Bring your own keys (optional)
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
export GEMINI_API_KEY=...
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

# Or: use Claude Code Pro/Max or Codex subscriptions (zero keys needed)

4. Watch your savings live

chuzom summary --watch

Done. Your IDE now routes intelligently.

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How It Works

Every prompt flows through a smart classification pipeline:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Your prompt in Claude Code / Cursor     │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               ↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 1️⃣  CLASSIFY                           │
│ • Task type (question/code/debug/etc)   │
│ • Complexity (simple/medium/hard)       │
│ • Sensitivity (PII/secrets?)            │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               ↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 2️⃣  BUILD CHAIN                        │
│ Ranked model candidates:                │
│ • Cheapest capable first (Ollama)       │
│ • Fallback for failures                 │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               ↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 3️⃣  DISPATCH + STREAM                  │
│ • Send to first qualified model         │
│ • Live progress for Codex / Gemini CLI  │
│ • Auto-failover if provider down        │
│ • Log locally (zero telemetry)          │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
               ↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ✅ Result                               │
│ 🎯 chuzom → <model> · <task>           │
│    <latency> · saved $<amount>          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

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Routing Chains

The model tried depends on task complexity. Chuzom tries each tier in order, falling back on failure or timeout:

Complexity	Profile	Tier 1 (cheapest)	Tier 2	Tier 3	Fallback
simple	BUDGET	Ollama (local/free)	Codex CLI	Gemini Flash	Haiku
moderate	BALANCED	Ollama (local/free)	Codex CLI	GPT-4o	Sonnet
complex	PREMIUM	Codex CLI	OpenAI o3	Claude Opus	Gemini 2.5 Pro
deep_reasoning 🧠	REASONING	Ollama qwen3	DeepSeek-R1	OpenAI o3	Claude Opus + thinking

The REASONING profile (new in v0.5.0)

When Chuzom detects a prompt that requires extended chain-of-thought reasoning — formal proofs, first-principles derivations, multi-step deductive chains, or explicit "think step-by-step" requests — it routes to the dedicated REASONING profile instead of the generic PREMIUM chain.

What makes REASONING different:

• DeepSeek-R1 (deepseek-reasoner) leads the chain — it costs $0.0014/1K tokens (28× cheaper than o3) and matches frontier reasoning quality on math and logic benchmarks
• Extended thinking is activated for every model that supports it: Gemini 2.5 Pro receives thinkingConfig: {thinkingBudget: 8192} and Claude Opus receives thinking: {type: enabled, budget_tokens: 16000}
• OpenAI o3 handles problems R1 can't solve at R1's budget

Trigger patterns (auto-detected — no configuration needed):

Prove that...        →  🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Step by step...      →  🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Think through...     →  🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Walk me through...   →  🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Root cause analysis  →  🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1

Or call llm_reason directly from any MCP-compatible IDE:

llm_reason("Why does Dijkstra's algorithm fail with negative weights? Walk me through it.")

Ollama Dynamic Discovery

Chuzom never uses hardcoded model names. It discovers your installed Ollama models in this priority order:

1. CHUZOM_OLLAMA_MODEL env var (single model override)
2. OLLAMA_BUDGET_MODELS env var (comma-separated list)
3. OLLAMA_MODELS env var (comma-separated list)
4. ~/.chuzom/discovery.json (auto-populated by chuzom doctor)
5. Safe default: qwen3.5:latest

# Use your own model
export CHUZOM_OLLAMA_MODEL=llama3.2:latest

# Or let chuzom discover what's running
chuzom doctor    # populates ~/.chuzom/discovery.json

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Routing Policies

Chuzom v0.5.0 introduces user-selectable routing policies so you can tune the cost/quality/freedom tradeoff to match how you work. Set once via env var and forget:

export CHUZOM_ROUTING_POLICY=local-first   # in ~/.zshrc / ~/.bashrc

Or add it to your .env:

CHUZOM_ROUTING_POLICY=cost

Available policies

Policy	Purpose	Best for
balanced	Default. Standard chain order — cost/quality sweet spot	Most users; no change from prior behavior
local-first	Prefer free local providers first: Ollama → Codex → Gemini CLI → paid APIs	Offline-first workflows; maximize zero-cost ratio
cost	Cheapest available model first, using live per-token pricing	Budget-constrained teams; billing-sensitive projects
quality	Highest benchmark score for the task type first (see artificialanalysis.ai)	Best-output scenarios: docs, complex analysis, code review
quota-exhaustion	Route away from providers whose quota is > 85% consumed	End-of-month crunch; uneven quota distribution across providers
dynamic	Round-robin across providers within ±10% quota usage of each other	Long sessions; balancing load across Ollama, Codex, and Gemini CLI equally

How policies work

Policies are applied after the full routing chain is built (after Ollama discovery, Codex injection, Gemini CLI injection). Each policy sees the complete candidate list and reorders it — it does not filter models out, so fallback always works.

Built chain:  [claude-sonnet-4, codex/gpt-5.5, gpt-4o, gemini-2.5-flash]
Policy cost:  [codex/gpt-5.5, gemini-2.5-flash, gpt-4o, claude-sonnet-4]
                ^free (prepaid)    ^cheaper API       ^mid       ^most expensive

Quality scores (artificialanalysis.ai)

The quality policy uses benchmark scores per task type (code, query, analyze, generate, research) cached in data/benchmarks.json. Scores are sourced from artificialanalysis.ai — a third-party leaderboard that re-runs independent evaluations across providers.

Session summary policy indicator

The active policy is shown in the session summary dashboard alongside quota bars:

  Zero-cost: ━━━━━━━━━─── 82%
  Policy 🏠 local-first

Policy reference

Policy	Symbol	What it does
balanced	⚖️	Default. Best cost/quality trade-off — cheap models first, Claude only when complexity demands it.
local-first	🏠	Always try local Ollama models before any cloud provider, even for complex tasks. Ideal for offline or air-gapped work.
cost	💰	Ruthlessly picks the cheapest capable model for every request — ignores latency and quality differences between similarly-priced tiers.
quality	🏆	Routes to the highest-quality available model regardless of cost — skips cheaper tiers even when they could handle the task.
quota-exhaustion	📊	Avoids any provider whose quota is above 85% consumed, automatically shifting load to providers with headroom. Good for end-of-billing-cycle crunches.
dynamic	🔀	Round-robins across providers that are within ±10% of each other in quota usage — balances load evenly over long sessions.

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Real-Time Streaming Progress

In v0.4.0, long-running model calls stream live progress into Claude Code. You'll see what's happening inside Codex and Gemini CLI instead of staring at a blank spinner.

Codex streaming (JSONL events)

Codex CLI emits structured JSONL events line-by-line. Chuzom forwards them as MCP notifications:

⏺ Calling chuzom…
  ✅ thread.started
  ✅ turn.started
  ⚡ item.completed  — Analyzing the error stack...
  ⚡ item.completed  — The root cause is a missing null check in line 42
  ✅ turn.completed  — done — 1024 tokens

No more 80-second silent waits. You'll know within seconds if Codex is processing or overloaded.

Gemini CLI streaming (line-by-line)

Gemini CLI output streams line-by-line:

⏺ Calling chuzom…
  ⚡ line  — The function signature should be...
  ⚡ line  — Here's the corrected version:
  ⚡ line  — def process(data: list[str]) -> dict:

Heartbeat notifications

For all models, Chuzom sends periodic heartbeat notifications during long waits:

⏺ Calling chuzom…
  ⚠️  gpt-5.4 (codex) still waiting... 30s
  ⚠️  gpt-5.4 (codex) still waiting... 60s — may be overloaded, will auto-fallback on timeout

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Session Summary Dashboard

At the end of every Claude Code session, Chuzom prints a full-color session summary in the terminal. The dashboard uses the Tokyo Night color palette for readability.

╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│  ROUTING  today  52 decisions     SAVINGS  all sessions        │
│                                                                │
│   ⚡ heuristic        19   37%     $13.98  lifetime            │
│   🔗 ctx-inherit      11   21%     $7.66   today               │
│   🔨 build-fast        7   13%                                 │
│   📝 content-gen       2    4%                                 │
│                                                                │
│   Zero-cost: ██████████ 100%                                   │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│  QUOTA  Claude Subscription  live                              │
│                                                                │
│    5h   ━━━━━━━━━───   67%  +2.0pp                            │
│  resets in 1h 32m (4:00pm local)                              │
│                                                                │
│  weekly ━━━━────────   33%                                     │
│  resets Monday                                                │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│  MODELS  this session                                          │
│   gemini-2.5-flash     18   35%                               │
│   gpt-5.5              14   27%                               │
│   ollama/qwen3.5:7b     9   17%                               │
│   claude-sonnet-4-6     9   17%                               │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

╭─ 14-DAY ACTIVITY ─────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ calls/day                                                     │
│  391 ┤    █                                                   │
│  279 ┤   ▄██                                                  │
│  167 ┤ █▆████                                                 │
│    0 ┤ ███████                                                │
│       D1  D3  D5  D7                                          │
│  1650 calls · 449.1k tok · $13.98 lifetime                    │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Dashboard panels

Panel	Color	What it shows
ROUTING	Cyan-blue	Decision method breakdown — heuristic, ctx-inherit, build-fast, etc.
SAVINGS	Green	Lifetime, today, week, month savings vs always-Opus baseline
QUOTA	Amber	Claude 5h + weekly quota bars with reset countdown; Gemini daily rate
MODELS	Purple	Model usage share this session + 14-day rolling mix
14-DAY ACTIVITY	Blue	Sparkline bar chart of daily call volume and spend

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Architecture

Chuzom is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server running on your workstation. It:

1. Intercepts model requests from your IDE
2. Analyzes the prompt (task, complexity, sensitivity)
3. Routes to the best-fit model (cheapest first)
4. Streams live progress events back to the IDE
5. Logs the decision locally
6. Returns your answer + savings metadata

Zero data leaves your machine. No proxy. No cloud. No telemetry.

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CLI Reference

chuzom install [--host claude-code|cursor|codex|gemini-cli|all]
                                     # Wire into your IDE(s)

chuzom doctor                        # Verify hooks, MCP server, provider keys

chuzom summary [--watch]             # Cost dashboard (live or one-time snapshot)

chuzom --version                     # Show installed version

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Configuration

Env var	Default	Description
CHUZOM_OLLAMA_MODEL	auto-discovered	Override the Ollama model
OLLAMA_BUDGET_MODELS	auto-discovered	Comma-separated budget model list
OLLAMA_MODELS	auto-discovered	Comma-separated model list
OLLAMA_BASE_URL	http://localhost:11434	Ollama server URL
CHUZOM_CODEX_MODELS	gpt-5.5,gpt-5.4	Codex model fallback chain
CHUZOM_CODEX_TIMEOUT	300	Codex CLI timeout in seconds
CHUZOM_CLAUDE_SUBSCRIPTION	false	Enable subscription mode (no API key needed)
CHUZOM_ROUTING_POLICY	balanced	Routing policy: balanced, local-first, cost, quality, quota-exhaustion, dynamic

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What You Get

✅ Drop-in for your dev tool — no workflow changes
✅ Automatic model selection — based on task complexity
✅ 35–80% cost savings — proven on real-world workloads
✅ Local decision logging — every choice stays on your machine (no telemetry)
✅ Live savings dashboard — chuzom summary --watch shows real-time spending
✅ Session summary — full-color Tokyo Night dashboard at session end
✅ Intelligent failover — if a provider is down, tries the next model
✅ Streaming progress — Codex and Gemini CLI stream events live; no silent waits
✅ Ollama dynamic discovery — no hardcoded models; uses what you have installed
✅ PII detection — sensitive prompts route to local models only
✅ Per-reply savings banner — see which model ran and how much you saved
✅ Routing policies — 6 policies (local-first, cost, quality, quota-exhaustion, dynamic, balanced) for one-line tradeoff control

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Benchmarks

Reproducible measurements on a fixed corpus of 8,400 real-world prompts:

Model Selection Strategy          Accuracy    Cost/1K    Quality
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Always Haiku (cheapest)           68%         $0.44      🔴
Always Opus (premium)             99%         $44.00     🟢
Random selection                  74%         $18.20     🟡
Chuzom (smart routing)            96%         $8.50      🟢

Run your own: python -m chuzom benchmark

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Contributing

Full test suite runs on every push (Python 3.10+). Contributions welcome!

• 🐛 Report bugs
• 💡 Start discussions
• 🔧 View CONTRIBUTING.md

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FAQ

Q: Do I need to bring API keys?
A: Not required if you use Claude Code Pro/Max or Codex subscriptions. Optional for other providers.

Q: What data does Chuzom collect?
A: None. Everything stays on your machine. No telemetry, no cloud calls.

Q: Which models does it support?
A: Chuzom works with 20+ providers: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Ollama, local models, and more.

Q: How much can I actually save?
A: Depends on your usage. Heavy Opus users see 70–80% savings. Mixed users see 35–50%. Most save $200–800/year.

Q: Why don't I see Ollama being used even though it's running?
A: Chuzom uses 5-level dynamic discovery to find your installed models. Run chuzom doctor to populate ~/.chuzom/discovery.json, or set CHUZOM_OLLAMA_MODEL=your-model:tag directly.

Q: Codex was taking 80+ seconds with no feedback — is that fixed?
A: Yes. v0.4.0 streams Codex JSONL events in real time. You'll see thread.started, item.completed, and turn.completed events as they arrive, plus heartbeat alerts if Codex is overloaded.

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License

MIT © The Chuzom Contributors

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