Claude OpenRouter

Use OpenRouter models in Claude Code without giving up your native login or connectors.

Claude OpenRouter is a small, dependency-free CLI. It indexes OpenRouter's live model catalog, gives you a searchable multi-select picker, and adds those favorites to Claude Code's native /model menu. There is no local proxy, background service, replacement harness, or alternate launcher: after setup, run the normal claude command.

Install

curl -LsSf https://xhluca.github.io/claude-openrouter/install.sh | sh

The installer prompts for your OpenRouter key without echoing it, fetches the current catalog, and opens the model picker immediately. It installs for the current user on Linux or macOS. If a credential already exists, setup shows its path and asks whether to reuse it before offering a masked replacement prompt.

Or use uv:

uv tool install claude-openrouter
clor setup

For a one-off setup without installing the package first:

uvx claude-openrouter setup

pipx install claude-openrouter works too. The full command is claude-openrouter; clor is the shorthand. Claude Code 2.1.242 or newer is required for the multi-model picker.

Upgrade the installation in place at any time:

clor update

The updater uses the manager that owns the current installation and reports the installed version before and after. clor upgrade is an alias. When moving from 0.2.x to 0.3.x, run clor setup once after the update to activate the new plain-claude integration.

Quick start

Refresh the local catalog:

clor index

fetch is an alias for index. index is the canonical name because the result is a persistent local catalog used by selection and search.

Search refreshes the index first. Plain terms are case-insensitive substring globs; *, ?, and bracket expressions use shell-style matching:

clor search claude
clor search 'anthropic/*' '*coder*'
clor search --regex '^(anthropic|google)/.*(sonnet|gemini)'

Select one exact model, several exact models, or open the interactive picker:

clor select anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6
clor select --model openai/gpt-5.4
clor select --models anthropic/claude-opus-4.6 google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview
clor select

The positional value is shorthand for --model. Each non-interactive call replaces the saved favorite set. In the picker, type a search and press Down or Enter to browse its results. Press Enter or Space to select and deselect; press Up past the first result or Esc to focus the search again. Press s while browsing results, or Shift-S/Ctrl-S while typing a search, to save.

Launch Claude Code normally, then switch models normally:

claude

> /model

The selected rows are Claude Code's native picker rows, and model requests use the OpenRouter key stored by this tool. Every local Claude Code entry point reads the same settings, including claude --continue, claude --agent NAME, background agents, and the claude agents view.

When you are logged in through claude.ai, Claude Code keeps that native authentication for Claude.ai connectors while a custom request header routes model calls to OpenRouter. The old external-auth warning is therefore absent. Without a native login, Claude.ai connectors are unavailable; manually configured MCP servers continue to work.

Commands

Every catalog command also accepts --json where useful. API keys are never accepted as command-line arguments; automation can pipe one to setup --key-stdin or config --key-stdin.

What it changes

OpenRouter API → local model index → selected favorites → Claude Code /model

• Stores the key at ~/.config/claude-openrouter/credential with mode 0600.
• Adds the picker, OpenRouter API base, and an Authorization header to ~/.claude/settings.json, then restricts that file to mode 0600 because it contains the key.
• With a native Claude.ai login, does not set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, or apiKeyHelper, so Claude Code retains that login and its connectors. Without one, it uses ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN as a fallback.
• Saves the fields it replaces in a private, versioned backup and restores them exactly with clor reset or clor uninstall.
• Migrates settings created by older claude-openrouter releases automatically the next time setup or selection runs.

Claude Code applies one endpoint to an entire process, not to individual /model rows. Consequently, the configured picker contains OpenRouter-routed favorites rather than a mixture of native-billed and OpenRouter-routed rows.

Claude Code is optimized for Anthropic models. OpenRouter can accept other model IDs through its Anthropic-compatible endpoint, but models differ in tool use, thinking blocks, context handling, and Claude Code compatibility. Prefer models that OpenRouter documents as suitable for agentic tool use.

Reset and uninstall

Restore the pre-install Claude settings while keeping the command:

clor reset

Restore settings, remove the credential and index, and uninstall a curl/uv tool installation:

clor uninstall

Demo

The animation above is rendered in real time from an end-to-end asciinema capture: the public curl installer, progressively masked key entry, a live OpenRouter search for z-ai/glm-5.3-flash, exact selection, Claude Code's native /model picker launched through plain claude, and a real model response. The scripts verify the saved assistant turn and reject any cast containing the credential before publishing it. Sanitization replaces the randomized temporary path with ~; release-only command, settings-path, and version labels may be rebased without altering the captured Claude interaction or model response.

Watch the MP4 or reproduce the capture.

Development

git clone https://github.com/xhluca/claude-openrouter.git
cd claude-openrouter
uv run --with pytest pytest
uv run --with ruff ruff check .

License

MIT

Acknowledgements

Claude Code Router (CCR) helped establish the broader Claude Code routing space. CCR is a full, self-contained routing and UI-based management system spanning providers, profiles, routing rules, and more. Claude OpenRouter is intentionally narrower: it is a simple connection from Claude Code to OpenRouter, installs with one small Bash command (or uv/uvx), and does not aim to cover CCR's full management spectrum.