ia-router

A router that splits your tasks across the official CLIs of the AI subscriptions you already pay for (claude, codex, agy from Antigravity), deciding with objective metrics from respected portals instead of by gut feeling.

It opens like claude: you type a task and it is routed on its own to the best model according to the metrics. If you want, you answer a few questions about what you prioritize for each kind of task (accuracy, speed or cost) and the routing is rebuilt.

• It already ships with metrics: the software bundles the latest snapshot of Arena; it routes with data from the first use, with no network.
• Updating is your action, and it is visible: on startup, if the metrics are more than 7 days old, it offers to update them, showing every step and what changed in the routing.
• No external dependencies: only the Python standard library (3.9 or higher; the tests pass on 3.9 and 3.14).
• It never touches OAuth tokens: each CLI uses its own login and its own subscription. "Allow everything" flags are never turned on.
• By Mgobeaalcoba · mgatc.com — GitHub

Full usage guide, with examples and troubleshooting: docs/USAGE.md. If you are an AI agent or you are going to contribute: AGENTS.md.

Where to find it

Website	mgatc.com/en/recursos/ia-router: what it is, use cases and installation (also in Spanish)
PyPI	pypi.org/project/ia-router: pipx install ia-router
Homebrew	Mgobeaalcoba/homebrew-tap: brew install Mgobeaalcoba/tap/ia-router
Code	github.com/Mgobeaalcoba/ia-suscription-router
Usage guide	docs/USAGE.md
Changes	CHANGELOG.md
Problems and ideas	Issues
License	Apache-2.0 · NOTICE · how to cite it

How it decides

your task ──► classify ──► score per model ──► pick the best ──► run its CLI
             (by rules)    (metrics + your      (with fallback    (with your login
                            priorities)          on rate limit)    and your quota)

Dimension	Where it comes from
Accuracy	Arena: Elo per category (coding, hard prompts, math, writing, long context, vision…) with a margin of error. Differences within the margin reward nobody.
Speed	Artificial Analysis (tokens/s). Requires its free key.
Cost	Price per million tokens (Artificial Analysis or Arena): a proxy for quota consumption.

Speed and cost use a logarithmic scale (2 points less for every doubling versus the best of your models). A dimension only counts if there is data for all your models. Details in docs/USAGE.md.

Installation

Tested on macOS (it should also work on Linux), with Python 3.9 or higher. There are two ways to install it, pick one:

Option A · Homebrew (macOS)

brew install Mgobeaalcoba/tap/ia-router

It is equivalent to brew tap Mgobeaalcoba/tap && brew install ia-router. Homebrew installs Python if needed.

Option B · pip or pipx (any system with Python 3.9+)

pipx install ia-router                  # recommended: installs it isolated and puts the `ia-router` command on your PATH
python3 -m pip install --user ia-router # alternative with pip

If you do not have pipx: brew install pipx && pipx ensurepath (macOS) or python3 -m pip install --user pipx && python3 -m pipx ensurepath. Then open a new terminal.

Check that it worked

ia-router --version     # ia-router 0.3.0
ia-router doctor        # which CLIs you have installed and which model each one uses (spends no quota)

You need at least one of the official CLIs installed and logged in (claude, codex or agy); the router does not install them for you.

Update and uninstall

	Homebrew	pipx	pip
Update	brew upgrade ia-router	pipx upgrade ia-router	python3 -m pip install -U ia-router
Uninstall	brew uninstall ia-router	pipx uninstall ia-router	python3 -m pip uninstall ia-router

Uninstalling does not delete your data (~/.ia-router: downloaded metrics, priorities, history). To start from scratch: rm -r ~/.ia-router.

If ia-router: command not found shows up after installing with pip or pipx, the scripts directory is missing from your PATH (usually ~/.local/bin): run pipx ensurepath and open a new terminal.

From the source code (Mgobeaalcoba/ia-suscription-router): git clone https://github.com/Mgobeaalcoba/ia-suscription-router.git && cd ia-suscription-router && python3 cli.py.

First use

ia-router            # opens the chat

On open it asks you (always before spending anything): which model each CLI uses (a minimal query to each one, only the first time), whether you want to update the metrics if they are old, and, once, whether you want to answer the priority questions.

ia ❯ Fix this bug in my Python function            ← routed on its own
ia ❯ /scores coding                                ← what the router picks and why
ia ❯ /priorities                                   ← what you prioritize for each kind of task
ia ❯ /metrics refresh                              ← update the metrics (with visibility)

Update the metrics and turn on speed/cost (.env)

ia-router metrics refresh        # reads ~11 public arena.ai pages (≈ 1 minute)

Arena provides accuracy. To add speed and cost (and be able to prioritize them) use the Artificial Analysis API, which has a free plan (1,000 requests per day):

mkdir -p ~/.ia-router && cp .env.example ~/.ia-router/.env      # installed with pip/brew (or `.env` in the repo folder if you use a clone)
# edit that file and paste your key:   ARTIFICIAL_ANALYSIS_API_KEY=your_key
ia-router metrics refresh        # now it also brings speed, price and benchmarks

The .env is never pushed to git (it is in .gitignore); .env.example is. A variable already defined in your environment takes priority over the file. Artificial Analysis asks for attribution: the router shows it every time it uses its data.

Commands

Command	What it does
(no arguments) / chat	Conversational mode.
ask "task" [-m model] [-c file] [--dry-run]	Routes and runs, with fallback.
route "task"	Shows which model it would pick, without running.
scores [category]	Score per model and category; with a category, the breakdown.
metrics [refresh] [--force]	Where the data comes from and which entry each model was matched with; refresh updates it.
priorities	Questions: what you prioritize for each kind of task.
doctor [--probe]	Installed CLIs and which model each one uses; with --probe, real login and latency.
stats	Success, latency, rate limits and tokens per model.
mcp	MCP server (stdio).
reset-cooldowns	Clears rate-limit or auth cooldowns.

Also: its own input box with history and multiple lines, dragged files (text as context; images and PDFs by path), every answer with the exact model and the tokens, and markdown rendered like a README on GitHub.

The task classifier understands tasks written in English and in Spanish; the whole interface is in English.

Files

File	Role
ia_router/cli.py · cli.py	Subcommands (the installed command is ia-router); cli.py is a shortcut from a clone.
pyproject.toml · packaging/homebrew/	PyPI package and Homebrew formula template.
LICENSE · NOTICE · CITATION.cff	Apache-2.0, mandatory attribution and how to cite it.
ia_router/data/models.json	Models: commands, usage flags, timeouts and last-resort estimates.
.env.example	Optional variables (Artificial Analysis key). Copy to .env.
ia_router/metrics.py	Arena and Artificial Analysis: download, matching by real model and 0-10 values.
ia_router/data/arena.json	Arena snapshot bundled with the software (CC BY 4.0).
ia_router/scoring.py · priorities.py	Score per category, weights and the priorities questionnaire.
ia_router/core.py · router.py	Orchestration, classification and ranking.
ia_router/adapters.py · probe.py	CLI execution (model and tokens, rate limit, login) and the probe.
ia_router/chat.py · editor.py · select.py	Chat, input box and option selector.
ia_router/attachments.py · render.py · banner.py	Dragged files, rendered markdown and the header.
ia_router/envfile.py · state.py · mcp_server.py	.env reader, state and log, MCP server.
tools/update_snapshot.py	For whoever maintains the repo: regenerates the Arena snapshot before publishing.
tests/	269 tests and fake CLIs (tests/fake_bin).

Using it from Claude Code (MCP)

claude mcp add ia-router -- python3 ~/Documents/ia-suscription-router/cli.py mcp

Tools: route_task, ask_model, list_models.

Known limits

Topic	Detail
Arena	It measures human preference, not correct answers, and publishes variants per effort level that may not match your CLI's (marked as approximate). It reads public arena.ai pages: if their format changes, it says so and continues with what it had.
Frontier models	Accuracy differences usually fall within the margin of error; there speed and cost break the tie, and they require the Artificial Analysis key.
Artificial Analysis	Verified against its real API. It does not publish every index for every model: the router uses the benchmarks that cover yours. If your CLI does not report its effort level, it picks the usual one and marks it as approximate.
Cost	It is the list price per token: a proxy for quota consumption, not your real quota.
Antigravity	agy -p does not read the prompt from stdin nor open files by path in non-interactive mode, and it fails if it asks for a tool it cannot authorize.
Terms of use	Meant for personal use at a human pace. If you distribute it to third parties, review each provider's terms (Anthropic requires an API key for third-party products).
Chat	The remembered history is the last few turns and it is not saved on exit; there is no response streaming.

Third-party data

The metrics are shown with their attribution: Arena (arena.ai, leaderboard-dataset dataset, CC BY 4.0) and Artificial Analysis.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome: read CONTRIBUTING.md (environment, rules, and commit sign-off with the DCO: git commit -s) and AGENTS.md.

License and how to cite

Apache License 2.0: you can use, modify and redistribute it, keeping the NOTICE file and the attribution to its author (section 4 of the license). Third-party data keeps its own licenses (see above).

To cite it in a work: CITATION.cff (GitHub shows it as Cite this repository).

ia-router, by Mgobeaalcoba (2026). https://www.mgatc.com/recursos/ia-router/