llmcycle 0.2.0

Cycle through multiple LLM providers with smart fallback, load balancing, and unified API with real-time FastAPI dashboard, resilient streaming failover, Pydantic structured output, prompt caching, token budgets, and local/cloud key rotation.

LLMCycle ♻️

The Production-Grade Universal LLM Router

Created by Bishwajit Garai — built from real pain, shipped for everyone.

📦 PyPI  ·  🐙 GitHub  ·  📖 Docs  ·  🤝 Contribute

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LLMCycle is an enterprise-grade universal LLM routing framework with zero mandatory dependencies. Route across 70+ providers, rotate unlimited API keys, handle every 4xx/5xx error gracefully, and stream with zero interruptions — even if your provider dies mid-response.

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💡 The Origin Story — Why We Built This

"I was building a production AI product and kept hitting the same walls — rate limits at 2 AM, API keys burning out mid-stream, no single library that handled all of it cleanly. I had to build the solution I wished existed." — Bishwajit Garai, creator of LLMCycle

The Problems We Faced

1. 429 Rate Limits Killed Production Traffic When you run at scale, 429 Too Many Requests is not an edge case — it's a daily reality. Existing routers would crash the entire request. We needed per-key cooldowns with auto-recovery.

2. API Keys Burned Out Without Warning With multiple keys across multiple providers, a single auth failure (401) would silently kill an entire provider. There was no library that tracked key health, disabled bad keys, and automatically rotated to healthy ones.

3. Mid-Stream Failures Were Catastrophic Streaming a 2000-token response and having the provider drop the connection at token 1800 meant starting from scratch. We needed seamless failover that captures partial context and continues from another provider without the user noticing.

4. Managing 70+ Provider Configs Was Painful Every provider has a different SDK, different error format, different auth header. We needed one unified interface that auto-discovers providers from .env keys — no boilerplate, no per-provider setup.

5. There Was No Visibility No dashboard, no analytics, no way to see which keys were healthy, which providers were slow, or how many tokens you were burning. We built all of that in.

The result: LLMCycle — one library that handles all of it, open source and free.

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⚡ 30-Second Quickstart

# pip
pip install llmcycle

# uv (recommended — faster)
uv add llmcycle

import asyncio
from llmcycle import LLMCycle

async def main():
    client = LLMCycle()   # auto-loads from .env

    # Streaming with automatic failover
    async for chunk in client.stream("openai/gpt-4o-mini", "Explain RAG in 3 bullet points"):
        print(chunk, end="", flush=True)

asyncio.run(main())

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📚 Comprehensive Examples

Looking for more advanced usage? Check out our examples/ directory for production-ready setups:

• Full SDK Showcase: A master reference initializing LLMCycle with all features (storage, cache, guardrails, rate limits, tools, structured output, batching, and streaming).
• Ultimate Production Example: Shows how to cleanly abstract LLMCycle into an application-wide router with groups and fallbacks.
• Production Auto Example: The "All Auto" pattern where app code never needs to pass models directly.
• Simple Groups Example: The easiest way to group models for load balancing.
• Proxy Example: How to route your LLM traffic through a corporate proxy.

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🏆 How LLMCycle Compares

We respect every library below — they solve different problems. This table focuses on LLM routing & reliability features specifically.

Feature	LLMCycle	LiteLLM	LangChain	OpenAI SDK	Portkey	aisuite
Multi-key per provider	✅ Unlimited	❌	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Auto key round-robin	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
429 per-key cooldown + recovery	✅	Basic	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
401 → auto disable key	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Mid-stream failover	✅ with context	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Provider auto-discovery from .env	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Priority / Round-Robin / Latency routing	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Dynamic Routing Groups (Aliases)	✅ Runtime Dynamic	❌	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Global Config Auto-Sync (Redis)	✅ Built-in ConfigLoader	❌	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Pluggable DB Storage (SQL/Redis/Mongo)	✅ Built-in drivers	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Canary & Weighted Splits	✅ Built-in (RoutingStrategy.CANARY)	❌	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Intent-Based Semantic Routing	✅ Built-in (SemanticRouter)	❌	✅ Basic (Hub config)	❌	❌	❌
Fallback chains (model + provider level)	✅	Partial	Partial	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Pluggable Prompt Caching	✅ Built-in (Memory/SQL/Redis)	✅ Basic (Redis, heavy)	✅ Basic	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Client-Side Rate Limiting	✅ Built-in (RPM/TPM bucket)	✅ Basic	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
PII & Secrets Guardrails	✅ Built-in (Mask/Unmask)	✅ Basic	✅ Basic	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Budget Enforcement	✅ Built-in (Cost cap)	✅ Basic	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Context Window Auto-Trim	✅ Built-in	❌	✅ Basic	❌	❌	❌
Structured Pydantic Output	✅ Tool-calling (default) + JSON-prompt fallback	✅ Basic	✅ Basic	✅ Basic	❌	❌
Agentic Tool Loops (with guard)	✅ Built-in loop (complete_with_tools)	❌	✅ Basic	❌	❌	❌
Multimodal Attachments (local/S3)	✅ Local/S3 storage	Basic (payload only)	Basic (payload only)	Basic (payload only)	Partial	❌
Live Model Discovery	✅ Parallel CLI/SDK	✅ SDK	❌	Basic	❌	❌
70+ providers	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅
Streaming	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
Parallel Batch Completions	✅ Built-in (complete_batch)	✅ Basic	✅ Basic	❌	❌	❌
Request/Response Middleware	✅ Hooks (on_before/on_after)	✅ Basic	✅ Basic	❌	❌	❌
Storage layer (SQL/Mongo/Redis)	✅ Built-in	❌	Partial	❌	❌	❌
Session / user / history tracking	✅	❌	Partial	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Analytics (tokens, latency, errors)	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Purge data by date range	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Web dashboard (SPA + REST API)	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅ Paid	❌
Zero mandatory extra deps	✅ httpx+pydantic	❌ Heavy	❌ Heavy	✅	❌	✅
Fully open source & free	✅ MIT	✅ MIT	✅ MIT	✅	❌ Freemium	✅ MIT
Self-hostable	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌ Cloud	✅

Legend: ✅ = Supported, ❌ = Not supported, Partial = Limited support, Paid = Requires paid plan

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⚙️ Automatic Environment Discovery (.env)

LLMCycle is designed for zero-boilerplate configuration. The moment you call LLMCycle(), it automatically scans your environment (or .env file) to discover, initialize, and register all LLM providers, their API keys, and endpoints.

Here is how the auto-discovery mechanism works under the hood:

1. The *_API_KEYS Pattern

LLMCycle searches for any environment variable matching the pattern {PROVIDER}_API_KEYS.

• Single Key: OPENAI_API_KEYS=sk-proj-...
• Multi-Key Load Balancing (Comma-Separated): If you provide a comma-separated list of keys, LLMCycle automatically parses them and performs healthy round-robin key rotation.

  # Comma-separate for multi-key rotation and automatic 429/401 resilience
  OPENAI_API_KEYS=sk-key1,sk-key2,sk-key3
  DEEPSEEK_API_KEYS=sk-ds-1,sk-ds-2
  

2. Provider Default Base URLs & Overrides

Every recognized provider (Groq, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, OpenAI, etc.) has its official production API URL registered out-of-the-box.

• Custom Endpoints / Gateways: You can override any provider's API endpoint dynamically by specifying {PROVIDER}_BASE_URL.
• Local Models (Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio): Since local models run locally, you can map their host addresses directly.

  OLLAMA_API_KEYS=local                     # Local providers require no active keys
  OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1 # Overrides default Ollama base URL
  

3. Dynamic Custom Providers

Need to connect to a new or custom OpenAI-compatible gateway? Just set the env variables! LLMCycle will automatically register any custom provider:

# Register a custom API gateway named 'mygateway'
MYGATEWAY_API_KEYS=sk-custom-123
MYGATEWAY_BASE_URL=https://api.mycustomgateway.com/v1

You can now immediately route queries to it: await client.complete("mygateway/some-model", "Hello!")!

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Full .env Example

Here is a production-ready .env file demonstrating all core features:

# ── Frontier Providers ──
OPENAI_API_KEYS=sk-proj-key1,sk-proj-key2
ANTHROPIC_API_KEYS=sk-ant-key1
GOOGLE_API_KEYS=AIzaSy...

# ── Specialized & Fast Aggregators ──
DEEPSEEK_API_KEYS=sk-ds-1,sk-ds-2
GROQ_API_KEYS=gsk_...
TOGETHER_API_KEYS=tg-...

# ── Local & Self-Hosted Overrides ──
OLLAMA_API_KEYS=local
OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1

# ── Custom OpenAI-Compatible Gateways ──
MYGATEWAY_API_KEYS=sk-mykey
MYGATEWAY_BASE_URL=https://api.mygateway.com/v1

# ── Dashboard Authentication ──
LLMCYCLE_USER_ADMIN=admin
LLMCYCLE_USER_ADMIN_PAASWORD=admin

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📚 Examples

Check out our comprehensive examples directly from the GitHub repository to see LLMCycle in action:

• Dynamic Group Routing & Fallbacks
• Pluggable Storage Drivers & SQL Customization
• Global Config Loading with Redis
• Semantic Routing & Caching
• High-Concurrency Batch Processing
• Agentic Tool Calling Loops
• Strict Pydantic Structured Output
• Mid-Stream Resilient Failover
• Guardrails & Prompt Injection Protection
• Budgets & Rate Limiting Enforcement
• Routing to Custom Local Models (Ollama/vLLM)
• Complete LLM Feature Demo
• Multimodal Chat Demo

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💻 Full SDK Usage

Init with Fallback Chains & Routing Groups

from llmcycle import LLMCycle
from llmcycle.core.router import RoutingStrategy

client = LLMCycle(
    env_path=".env",
    groups={
        # Groups let you define logical clusters of models for auto-fallback
        "fast_tier": [
            "groq/llama-3.1-70b",
            "openai/gpt-4o-mini",
            "anthropic/claude-3-haiku"
        ]
    },
    fallbacks={
        # provider-level: if deepseek is down, try groq, then openai
        "deepseek": ["groq", "openai"],

        # model-level: more specific, takes precedence
        "deepseek/deepseek-chat": [
            "groq/llama-3.1-70b-versatile",
            "openai/gpt-4o-mini",
        ],
    },
    strategy=RoutingStrategy.PRIORITY,   # or ROUND_ROBIN, LOWEST_LATENCY, COST
)

# You can now route to a specific group, and LLMCycle will automatically try the first healthy model!
response = await client.complete(group="fast_tier", prompt="Hello!")

# If you provide both model AND group, the model acts as primary and group acts as fallback:
response = await client.complete(model="openai/gpt-4o", group="fast_tier", prompt="Hello!")

# ── Dynamic Group Management at Runtime ──
# You can also add, update, list, and delete groups on the fly without restarting:
client.router.groups.set("cost_saver", ["groq/llama-3.1-8b", "deepseek/deepseek-chat"])

print(client.router.groups.list_all())
# → {"fast_tier": [...], "cost_saver": ["groq/llama-3.1-8b", "deepseek/deepseek-chat"]}

client.router.groups.remove("cost_saver")

List providers + keys health

providers = client.get_providers()
# → ['openai', 'deepseek', 'groq', 'together', 'ollama']

for p in providers:
    stats = client.key_manager.key_count(p)
    print(f"[{p}] {stats['active']}/{stats['total']} keys active")
    print(client.get_key_stats(p))

Fetch models from a provider

models = await client.get_models("groq")
print(models)  # ['llama-3.1-70b-versatile', 'mixtral-8x7b-32768', ...]

Fetch all live models in parallel

# Fetches all dynamic live models across all active providers in parallel
all_models = await client.get_all_live_models()
# → {"openai": ["gpt-4o", ...], "groq": ["llama-3.1-70b", ...]}

Non-streaming completion

response = await client.complete(
    model="deepseek/deepseek-chat",
    prompt="What is RAG?",
    temperature=0.7,
    max_tokens=512,
)
print(response.content)
print(f"Provider: {response.provider}, Latency: {response.latency_ms:.0f}ms")

Resilient streaming

# If deepseek drops mid-stream → silently continues with groq
async for chunk in client.stream("deepseek/deepseek-chat", "Write a haiku"):
    print(chunk, end="", flush=True)

Manual provider registration (no .env needed)

client.add_provider(
    name="myprovider",
    api_keys=["sk-abc", "sk-def"],
    base_url="https://api.myprovider.com/v1",
)

Auto-save every request to storage

Pass storage= into LLMCycle and every complete() / stream() call automatically saves an LLMRequest record — no manual save_request needed.

from llmcycle import LLMCycle
from llmcycle.storage import StorageBackend, StorageManager

# Set up storage once
store = StorageManager(
    backend=StorageBackend.SQLITE,   # or POSTGRES, MONGO, REDIS ...
    table_prefix="myapp_",
)
await store.connect()

# Pass into client — all calls auto-save
client = LLMCycle(
    storage=store,
    session_id="sess-abc",   # stamped on every request (optional)
    user_id="user-123",      # stamped on every request (optional)
)

# ✅ This now auto-saves an LLMRequest record to storage
response = await client.complete("openai/gpt-4o-mini", "What is RAG?")

# ✅ Streaming also auto-saves (once stream completes)
async for chunk in client.stream("groq/llama-3.1-70b", "Write a haiku"):
    print(chunk, end="", flush=True)

# Override session/user per-call
response = await client.complete(
    model="deepseek/deepseek-chat",
    prompt="Explain transformers",
    session_id="sess-xyz",   # overrides client-level session_id
    user_id="user-456",
)

# Query what was saved
requests = await store.list_requests(user_id="user-123")
stats = await store.analytics.summary()

You can still manually save if needed:

from llmcycle.storage.models import LLMRequest

await store.save_request(LLMRequest(
    model="gpt-4o-mini",
    provider="openai",
    prompt="What is RAG?",
    response="RAG is...",
    prompt_tokens=12,
    completion_tokens=80,
    latency_ms=340,
    status="success",
    session_id=session.id,
    user_id=user.id,
))

💡 Complete Production Example (End-to-End)

For a fully self-contained production workflow featuring database storage, multi-provider fallbacks, prompt caching, token budget limits, structured Pydantic output, and performance analytics, you can run the complete example script included in the codebase:

# Run the complete end-to-end production example
uv run examples/complete_llm_example.py

Here is the complete production workflow code:

import asyncio
from typing import List
from pydantic import BaseModel, Field
from llmcycle import LLMCycle, RoutingStrategy
from llmcycle.storage import StorageBackend, StorageManager
from llmcycle.storage.models import User, Session

# 1. Define structured outputs
class UserProfile(BaseModel):
    name: str = Field(description="The person's name")
    skills: List[str] = Field(description="Core technical skills")
    experience_years: int = Field(description="Years of experience")

async def main():
    # 2. Setup SQLite database storage
    store = StorageManager(backend=StorageBackend.SQLITE, table_prefix="prod_")
    await store.connect()
    
    # 3. Create tracking session
    user = await store.create_user(User(username="alice", email="[e-mail]"))
    session = await store.create_session(Session(user_id=user.id, model="openai/gpt-4o-mini"))
    
    # 4. Initialize LLMCycle with Storage & Resilient Routing
    client = LLMCycle(
        env_path=".env",
        storage=store,
        session_id=session.id,
        user_id=user.id,
        strategy=RoutingStrategy.PRIORITY,
        fallbacks={
            "deepseek": ["groq", "openai"],
            "deepseek/deepseek-chat": ["groq/llama-3.1-70b-versatile", "openai/gpt-4o-mini"]
        }
    )
    
    # 5. Non-streaming request (Auto-logs metadata, latency, cost to DB)
    response = await client.complete(
        model="openai/gpt-4o-mini",
        prompt="Explain key rotation in one sentence."
    )
    print(f"[{response.provider}]: {response.content.strip()}")
    
    # 6. Resilient streaming completion with mid-stream failover fallback
    async for chunk in client.stream(
        model="openai/gpt-4o-mini",
        prompt="Write a short poem about coding."
    ):
        print(chunk, end="", flush=True)
    print()
    
    # 7. Structured Pydantic extraction
    profile: UserProfile = await client.structured_complete(
        model="openai/gpt-4o-mini",
        prompt="Alice is a backend engineer with 5 years experience skilled in Python and FastAPI.",
        response_model=UserProfile
    )
    print(f"Profile: {profile.name}, Skills: {profile.skills}")
    
    # 8. Pull production analytics in real-time from the database
    summary = await store.analytics.summary()
    print(f"Total Requests Logged: {summary.get('total_requests')}")
    print(f"Average Latency: {summary.get('avg_latency_ms'):.1f}ms")
    
    await store.disconnect()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

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🛡️ Error Handling

LLMCycle classifies every HTTP error into a specific exception and acts accordingly:

HTTP Status	Exception	Action Taken
429 rate-limit	RateLimitError	Rotate key, wait cooldown, retry
429 quota	QuotaExceededError	Rotate key, 1hr cooldown
402 payment	QuotaExceededError	Rotate key, 1hr cooldown
401 auth	AuthenticationError	Permanently disable key
400 content	ContentPolicyError	Fail fast — do NOT retry
400 bad req	ProviderError	Try next provider
5xx server	ProviderError	Try next provider
Stream drop	StreamInterruptedError	Failover with partial text context

You can catch them individually:

from llmcycle import RateLimitError, AuthenticationError, AllProvidersFailedError

try:
    resp = await client.complete("openai/gpt-4o", "Hello")
except AuthenticationError as e:
    print(f"Bad key for {e.provider}")
except AllProvidersFailedError as e:
    print(f"All providers failed: {e.errors}")

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🖥️ Web Dashboard

uv run llmcycle ui
# → http://127.0.0.1:8000

Login with LLMCYCLE_USER_ADMIN / LLMCYCLE_USER_ADMIN_PAASWORD from your .env.
The UI uses a token-based REST API (/api/token → Bearer token), not server-side rendering.

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🌐 Supported Providers (70+)

Frontier / Cloud

Provider	Env Prefix	API Key Pattern Example (Comma-separate for multi-key rotation)	Base URL
OpenAI	OPENAI	OPENAI_API_KEYS=sk-proj-...,sk-proj-...	https://api.openai.com/v1
Anthropic	ANTHROPIC	ANTHROPIC_API_KEYS=sk-ant-...,sk-ant-...	https://api.anthropic.com/v1
Google AI Studio	GOOGLE	GOOGLE_API_KEYS=AIzaSy...,AIzaSy...	https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta
Azure OpenAI	AZURE	AZURE_API_KEYS=key1,key2	Custom AZURE_BASE_URL required
AWS Bedrock	AWS_BEDROCK	AWS_BEDROCK_API_KEYS=key1	Custom region URL

Fast Inference / Aggregators

Provider	Env Prefix	API Key Pattern Example	Base URL
Groq	GROQ	GROQ_API_KEYS=gsk_...,gsk_...	https://api.groq.com/openai/v1
Together AI	TOGETHER	TOGETHER_API_KEYS=tg-...,tg-...	https://api.together.xyz/v1
Fireworks AI	FIREWORKS	FIREWORKS_API_KEYS=fw-...,fw-...	https://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1
Perplexity	PERPLEXITY	PERPLEXITY_API_KEYS=pplx-...,pplx-...	https://api.perplexity.ai
OpenRouter	OPENROUTER	OPENROUTER_API_KEYS=sk-or-...,sk-or-...	https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
DeepInfra	DEEPINFRA	DEEPINFRA_API_KEYS=di-...,di-...	https://api.deepinfra.com/v1/openai
Anyscale	ANYSCALE	ANYSCALE_API_KEYS=as-...,as-...	https://api.endpoints.anyscale.com/v1
Novita AI	NOVITA	NOVITA_API_KEYS=nv-...,nv-...	https://api.novita.ai/v3/openai
Featherless	FEATHERLESS	FEATHERLESS_API_KEYS=fl-...,fl-...	https://api.featherless.ai/v1
Lambda AI	LAMBDA	LAMBDA_API_KEYS=la-...,la-...	https://api.lambdalabs.com/v1
SambaNova	SAMBANOVA	SAMBANOVA_API_KEYS=sn-...,sn-...	https://api.sambanova.ai/v1
Cerebras	CEREBRAS	CEREBRAS_API_KEYS=csk-...,csk-...	https://api.cerebras.ai/v1
Hyperbolic	HYPERBOLIC	HYPERBOLIC_API_KEYS=hb-...,hb-...	https://api.hyperbolic.xyz/v1
Nebius AI	NEBIUS	NEBIUS_API_KEYS=nb-...,nb-...	https://api.studio.nebius.ai/v1
Nscale	NSCALE	NSCALE_API_KEYS=ns-...,ns-...	https://inference.api.nscale.com/v1

Specialized

Provider	Env Prefix	API Key Pattern Example	Base URL
DeepSeek	DEEPSEEK	DEEPSEEK_API_KEYS=sk-...,sk-...	https://api.deepseek.com/v1
Mistral AI	MISTRAL	MISTRAL_API_KEYS=ms-...,ms-...	https://api.mistral.ai/v1
Codestral	CODESTRAL	CODESTRAL_API_KEYS=cs-...,cs-...	https://codestral.mistral.ai/v1
Cohere	COHERE	COHERE_API_KEYS=ch-...,ch-...	https://api.cohere.com/v1
AI21	AI21	AI21_API_KEYS=ai21-...,ai21-...	https://api.ai21.com/studio/v1
xAI (Grok)	XAI	XAI_API_KEYS=xai-...,xai-...	https://api.x.ai/v1
Nvidia NIM	NVIDIA_NIM	NVIDIA_NIM_API_KEYS=nvapi-...,nvapi-...	https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1
GitHub Models	GITHUB	GITHUB_API_KEYS=ghu-...,ghu-...	https://models.inference.ai.azure.com
Vercel AI	VERCEL	VERCEL_API_KEYS=vc-...,vc-...	https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh
FriendliAI	FRIENDLIAI	FRIENDLIAI_API_KEYS=fr-...,fr-...	https://inference.friendli.ai/v1

Chinese / Asia

Provider	Env Prefix	API Key Pattern Example	Base URL
Qwen (DashScope)	QWEN	QWEN_API_KEYS=qw-...,qw-...	https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1
Moonshot AI	MOONSHOT	MOONSHOT_API_KEYS=ms-...,ms-...	https://api.moonshot.cn/v1
MiniMax	MINIMAX	MINIMAX_API_KEYS=mm-...,mm-...	https://api.minimax.chat/v1
Zhipu (Z.AI)	ZHIPU	ZHIPU_API_KEYS=zp-...,zp-...	https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4
Volcano Engine	VOLCANO	VOLCANO_API_KEYS=ve-...,ve-...	https://ark.cn-beijing.volces.com/api/v3

Enterprise / Cloud

Provider	Env Prefix	API Key Pattern Example	Note
Databricks	DATABRICKS	DATABRICKS_API_KEYS=db-...,db-...	Set DATABRICKS_BASE_URL
Snowflake	SNOWFLAKE	SNOWFLAKE_API_KEYS=sf-...,sf-...	Set SNOWFLAKE_BASE_URL
WatsonX	WATSONX	WATSONX_API_KEYS=wx-...,wx-...	https://us-south.ml.cloud.ibm.com
SAP AI Hub	SAP	SAP_API_KEYS=sap-...,sap-...	Enterprise endpoint
Oracle OCI	OCI	OCI_API_KEYS=oci-...,oci-...	Regional endpoint
Cloudflare AI	CLOUDFLARE	CLOUDFLARE_API_KEYS=cf-...,cf-...	Set CLOUDFLARE_BASE_URL
Heroku	HEROKU	HEROKU_API_KEYS=hk-...,hk-...	https://llm.api.heroku.com/v1
OVHCloud	OVH	OVH_API_KEYS=ovh-...,ovh-...	EU sovereign cloud
Scaleway	SCALEWAY	SCALEWAY_API_KEYS=sw-...,sw-...	https://api.scaleway.ai/v1

Local / Self-Hosted

Provider	Env Prefix	API Key Pattern Example	Default URL
Ollama	OLLAMA	OLLAMA_API_KEYS=local	http://localhost:11434/v1
LM Studio	LM_STUDIO	LM_STUDIO_API_KEYS=local	http://localhost:1234/v1
vLLM	VLLM	VLLM_API_KEYS=local	http://localhost:8000/v1
Llamafile	LLAMAFILE	LLAMAFILE_API_KEYS=local	http://localhost:8080/v1
Xinference	XINFERENCE	XINFERENCE_API_KEYS=local	http://localhost:9997/v1

Any OpenAI-compatible provider works — just set MYPROVIDER_API_KEYS=... and MYPROVIDER_BASE_URL=https://...

---

🔌 Routing Strategies

from llmcycle.core.router import RoutingStrategy

RoutingStrategy.PRIORITY        # Default: follow your fallback sort order
RoutingStrategy.ROUND_ROBIN     # Cycle across all providers equally
RoutingStrategy.LOWEST_LATENCY  # Always pick the statistically fastest provider
RoutingStrategy.CANARY          # Canary routing with dynamic split percentages
RoutingStrategy.WEIGHTED        # Weight-based traffic routing splits

---

⚡ Core Enterprise Features (Caching, Rate Limits, Guardrails)

To keep LLMCycle extremely lightweight and fast, all advanced enterprise features are completely dynamic, self-throttling, and default to False / disabled. You only opt-in and pay the computational cost for exactly what you use.

---

1. Pluggable Prompt Caching ♻️

Avoid duplicate LLM costs and reduce latency down to ~10ms for identical repeating queries.

• How it works: Defaults to False (no caching). Passing cache=True activates the fast InMemoryCache. You can also supply a database-backed pluggable cache instance (e.g. SQLCache or RedisCache).
• TTL Activation: Set the exact cache lifetime per-call using cache_ttl (in seconds).

from llmcycle import LLMCycle
from llmcycle.core.cache import SQLCache

# Enable default In-Memory Caching
client = LLMCycle(cache=True)

# OR pass a SQL / Redis pluggable cache instance
db_cache = SQLCache("sqlite+aiosqlite:///cache.db")
client = LLMCycle(cache=db_cache)

# Caching is triggered dynamically by passing `cache_ttl`
response1 = await client.complete("openai/gpt-4o-mini", "What is 2+2?", cache_ttl=300)
response2 = await client.complete("openai/gpt-4o-mini", "What is 2+2?", cache_ttl=300) # Served instantly (~1ms) from cache!

---

2. Client-Side Rate Limiting 🚦

Prevent rate-limit failures (HTTP 429) before they even hit your providers using a high-performance token-bucket rate limiter.

• How it works: Defaults to False (no rate limits). Pass rate_limits=True to activate sensible default limits (60 RPM / 40,000 TPM), or supply a custom dictionary mapping models/providers to specific limits.
• Fair Queueing: If a request exceeds RPM or TPM, the rate-limiter automatically pauses and queues execution, waking up exactly when limits replenish.

# Enable sensible default rate limits (60 RPM, 40,000 TPM)
client = LLMCycle(rate_limits=True)

# OR configure precise rate limits per model or provider
client = LLMCycle(
    rate_limits={
        "openai/gpt-4o": {"rpm": 100, "tpm": 80000},
        "groq/llama-3.1-70b": {"rpm": 30, "tpm": 20000},
    }
)

---

3. PII & Secrets Guardrails 🛡️

Ensure security compliance and prevent data leaks. LLMCycle intercepts outgoing prompts to dynamically detect and mask sensitive information before they leave your servers, and automatically unmasks the output response before returning it to your application.

• How it works: Defaults to False (no guardrails). Pass guardrail=True to enable state-of-the-art PII and high-entropy secret masking.
• Sensitive Types Masked: Emails, credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers (SSNs), IP addresses, and high-entropy cloud/API tokens.

# Enable standard PII and Secrets Guardrail
client = LLMCycle(guardrail=True)

# Outgoing prompt is masked to: "My email is [EMAIL_1] and my key is [API_KEY_1]"
# Response is automatically unmasked back to the original values!
response = await client.complete(
    "openai/gpt-4o-mini", 
    "Verify this info: My email is [e-mail] and my API key is sk-1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef"
)

---

4. Semantic Caching 🧠

Semantic caching uses TF-IDF + Cosine Similarity to serve cached responses for conceptually similar prompts, ignoring minor typos or word reordering.

client = LLMCycle(semantic_cache=True)

# First call hits the LLM
resp1 = await client.complete("openai/gpt-4o", "Explain quantum physics to a 5 year old.")

# Second call is served from Semantic Cache instantly!
resp2 = await client.complete("openai/gpt-4o", "Explain quantum physics to a five yr old.")

---

5. Shadow Routing (Dark Launching / A/B Testing) 👻

Test new models in production with zero risk. Send production traffic to your primary model, and asynchronously mirror the identical prompt to a "shadow" model in the background.

client = LLMCycle()
resp = await client.complete(
    "openai/gpt-4o",
    "Summarize this meeting.",
    shadow_models=["anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet", "groq/llama-3.1-70b"]
)
# The user gets the GPT-4o response instantly.
# Claude and Llama process the same request in the background and log it to storage.

---

6. Prompt Registry & Versioning 📜

Manage versioned prompt templates dynamically.

client = LLMCycle()

client.prompts.set("greeting", "Hello {{name}}, welcome to {{place}}!", version="v1")
client.prompts.set("greeting", "Hey {{name}}, enjoy your stay at {{place}}!", version="v2")

resp = await client.complete(
    "openai/gpt-4o", 
    client.prompts.render("greeting", name="Alice", place="Wonderland", version="v2")
)

---

7. Cost-Optimized Routing 💸

Automatically route to the cheapest provider.

from llmcycle.core.router import RoutingStrategy

client = LLMCycle(
    strategy=RoutingStrategy.COST_OPTIMIZED,
    fallbacks={
        "openai/gpt-4o-mini": ["anthropic/claude-3-haiku", "groq/llama-3.1-8b"]
    }
)
# Routes to Groq -> OpenAI -> Anthropic (based on known input token costs)

---

8. Multimodal Attachments 📎

Run multimodal queries with zero-copy or automated cloud offloading. Simply pass PDF, image, audio, or video files into attachments.

• How it works: Defaults to local storage. Saves files to a local directory (for caching/record-keeping) and automatically encodes them as standard Base64 Data URL payloads.
• AWS S3 Offloading: Need cloud-based file serving for models that require URL inputs? Switch attachment_storage to "s3". Files are automatically uploaded using dynamic boto3 integration, returning secure, pre-signed URLs valid for 1 hour.

from llmcycle import LLMCycle

# Local attachments storage
client = LLMCycle(
    attachment_storage="local",
    attachment_config={
        "local_dir": "./saved_attachments"  # Where local copies are saved
    }
)

# Call complete or stream with attachments
response = await client.complete(
    model="openai/gpt-4o-mini",
    prompt="Explain the core problem in this document and look at this image.",
    attachments=[
        "./documents/audit_report.pdf",
        "./images/system_architecture.png"
    ]
)
print(response.content)

# AWS S3-backed attachments (zero mandatory external dependencies)
client_s3 = LLMCycle(
    attachment_storage="s3",
    attachment_config={
        "s3_bucket": "my-llmcycle-attachments",
        "s3_prefix": "runs/attachments/",       # Optional, default: "attachments/"
        "s3_region": "us-west-2"                 # Optional, default: "us-east-1"
    }
)

---

🚀 CLI

llmcycle providers           # List all loaded providers + key health
llmcycle models              # Fetch and list all dynamic live models across providers in parallel
llmcycle models groq         # Fetch and list live models for a specific provider
llmcycle ui                  # Start dashboard on http://127.0.0.1:8000

Changing the UI port / host

# Custom port
llmcycle ui --port 9000

# Custom host + port (expose to network)
llmcycle ui --host 0.0.0.0 --port 9000

# Dev mode with auto-reload on code changes
llmcycle ui --port 8080 --reload

# All options
llmcycle ui --help

Via env variables (permanent config)

# .env
LLMCYCLE_UI_HOST=0.0.0.0
LLMCYCLE_UI_PORT=9000

Then just run:

llmcycle ui    # picks up host/port from .env automatically

---

🗄️ Storage Layer & Pluggable Drivers

Persist sessions, users, requests, configs, and full conversation history to any one backend. Pick exactly one — configured via .env or passed directly to the class.

LLMCycle uses a robust Driver pattern under the hood, ensuring your storage engine can dynamically handle custom schemas, namespaces, and runtime connection overrides.

Install your backend

uv add llmcycle[sqlite]    # SQLite  — zero config, local dev
uv add llmcycle[postgres]  # PostgreSQL
uv add llmcycle[mysql]     # MySQL / MariaDB
uv add llmcycle[mssql]     # Microsoft SQL Server
uv add llmcycle[mongo]     # MongoDB
uv add llmcycle[redis]     # Redis (best for sessions + caching)
uv add llmcycle[storage]   # All backends at once

Configure via .env (recommended)

# Choose ONE backend
LLMCYCLE_STORAGE_BACKEND=postgres
LLMCYCLE_STORAGE_URL=postgresql+asyncpg://user:pass@localhost/mydb

# Optional — default schema and table/collection prefix
LLMCYCLE_STORAGE_SCHEMA=analytics       # PostgreSQL/MSSQL schema
LLMCYCLE_STORAGE_TABLE_PREFIX=llm_      # Default: "llmc_"

Or pass directly (overrides env)

from llmcycle.storage import StorageBackend, StorageManager

# SQLite — zero config
store = StorageManager(StorageBackend.SQLITE)

# PostgreSQL with custom schema + prefix
store = StorageManager(
    backend=StorageBackend.POSTGRES,
    url="postgresql+asyncpg://user:pass@host/db",
    schema="analytics",      # tables live in "analytics" schema
    table_prefix="llm_",     # → analytics.llm_requests, analytics.llm_users ...
)

# You can even inject a custom driver directly!
from llmcycle.drivers.sql import SQLDriver
custom_driver = SQLDriver(url="sqlite+aiosqlite:///:memory:")
store = StorageManager(StorageBackend.SQLITE, driver=custom_driver)

await store.connect()

🌍 Global Config Sync via ConfigLoaders

When scaling LLMCycle across multiple workers, use ConfigLoader to sync routes and API keys across nodes:

from llmcycle.core.config_loader import RedisConfigLoader
from llmcycle.drivers.redis import RedisDriver

# Automatically load fallback chains and groups from Redis dynamically!
loader = RedisConfigLoader(driver=RedisDriver("redis://localhost:6379/0"))
client = LLMCycle(config_loader=loader)

Priority: direct args > env vars > defaults

Env Var	Default	Description
LLMCYCLE_STORAGE_BACKEND	—	sqlite / postgres / mysql / mssql / mongo / redis
LLMCYCLE_STORAGE_URL	per-backend default	Connection string
LLMCYCLE_STORAGE_SCHEMA	None	DB schema (Postgres/MSSQL) or DB name (MongoDB)
LLMCYCLE_STORAGE_TABLE_PREFIX	llmc_	Prefix for all tables / collections / keys

Ping — test connectivity

result = await store.ping()
# {"ok": True, "backend": "postgres", "latency_ms": 1.4}
# {"ok": False, "backend": "redis",   "error": "Connection refused"}

CRUD — Users, Teams, Sessions, Requests, History

from llmcycle.storage.models import User, Session, LLMRequest, HistoryMessage

# Users
user = await store.create_user(User(username="alice", email="[e-mail]", role="admin"))
user = await store.get_user(user.id)
user = await store.get_user_by_username("alice")
users = await store.list_users(team_id="team-123")
await store.update_user(user)
await store.delete_user(user.id)

# Sessions
session = await store.create_session(Session(user_id=user.id, model="gpt-4o"))
session.total_requests += 1
await store.update_session(session)
sessions = await store.list_sessions(user_id=user.id, limit=20)

# Requests (auto-logged per LLM call)
req = await store.save_request(LLMRequest(
    model="gpt-4o-mini", provider="openai",
    prompt="What is RAG?",  response="RAG is...",
    prompt_tokens=12, completion_tokens=80,
    latency_ms=340, status="success",
    session_id=session.id, user_id=user.id,
))
requests = await store.list_requests(session_id=session.id)

# History (conversation turns)
await store.append_history(HistoryMessage(session_id=session.id, role="user",      content="Hello"))
await store.append_history(HistoryMessage(session_id=session.id, role="assistant", content="Hi!"))
history = await store.get_history(session.id, limit=100)
await store.clear_history(session.id)

Analytics

import time

yesterday = time.time() - 86400

# Overall summary
stats = await store.analytics.summary(from_ts=yesterday)
# {
#   "total_requests": 1200,
#   "total_tokens": 540000,
#   "avg_latency_ms": 312.4,
#   "p95_latency_ms": 890.2,
#   "error_rate": 0.02,
#   "fallback_rate": 0.05,
# }

# Filter by user / session / provider / model / time range
user_stats = await store.analytics.summary(user_id="u-abc", from_ts=yesterday)

# Breakdown per provider
by_prov = await store.analytics.by_provider(from_ts=yesterday)
# [{"provider": "openai", "requests": 800, "tokens": 380000, "avg_latency_ms": 340, "errors": 4}, ...]

# Breakdown per model
by_model = await store.analytics.by_model()

# Breakdown per user (sorted by token usage)
by_user = await store.analytics.by_user(from_ts=yesterday)

# Breakdown per session
by_session = await store.analytics.by_session(user_id="u-abc")

# Time-series (bucket = "minute" | "hour" | "day")
timeseries = await store.analytics.timeseries(bucket="hour", from_ts=yesterday)
# [{"bucket": "2025-05-22T14:00", "requests": 45, "tokens": 18000, "errors": 1, "avg_latency_ms": 290}, ...]

# Top errors
errors = await store.analytics.top_errors(limit=10)
# [{"error": "Rate limited", "count": 12, "provider": "openai"}, ...]

Purge / Delete by date range

import time

# Delete request logs older than 30 days
thirty_days_ago = time.time() - 30 * 86400
result = await store.purge_by_range(to_ts=thirty_days_ago)
# {"deleted": {"requests": 4820}}

# Delete everything in a specific time window
result = await store.purge_by_range(
    from_ts=1700000000,
    to_ts=1700086400,
    entities=["requests", "history", "sessions"],  # or ["all"]
)
# {"deleted": {"requests": 120, "history": 340, "sessions": 15}}

# Wipe all cached request logs (no time range = all)
result = await store.purge_by_range(entities=["requests"])

Async context manager

async with StorageManager(StorageBackend.SQLITE) as store:
    await store.create_user(User(username="bob"))
    stats = await store.analytics.summary()
    result = await store.ping()
# auto-disconnects on exit

---

🧪 Running Tests

# All tests (34 core + 40+ storage)
uv run pytest tests/ -v

# Only storage tests (uses in-memory SQLite — no external DB needed)
uv run pytest tests/test_storage.py -v

# Only core LLM routing tests
uv run pytest tests/test_llmcycle.py -v

---

🤝 Contributing

LLMCycle was born from real-world pain. Every feature exists because someone hit a wall in production. We welcome contributions of all kinds — new provider integrations, bug fixes, storage backends, dashboard improvements, or just better documentation.

How to contribute

# 1. Fork & clone
git clone https://github.com/Bishwajitgarai/llmcycle.git
cd llmcycle

# 2. Install in dev mode with all extras
uv sync --group dev
uv add sqlalchemy aiosqlite --dev

# 3. Make your changes
# 4. Run tests — all must pass
uv run pytest tests/ -v

# 5. Open a Pull Request

What we'd love help with

Area	Ideas
New providers	Add any OpenAI-compatible API to providers/registry.py
Storage backends	DynamoDB, Cassandra, ClickHouse
Analytics	Cost estimation, token pricing per model
Dashboard	Charts, export, multi-user auth
Testing	Integration tests for each provider
Docs	Tutorials, deployment guides, video walkthroughs

Contribution guidelines

• Keep PRs focused — one feature or fix per PR
• Add tests for any new functionality
• Follow existing code style (no external formatters required)
• Update README.md if you add a new provider or feature
• Be kind — this is a welcoming community

Found a bug? Have an idea?

Open an issue at github.com/Bishwajitgarai/llmcycle/issues. No template required — just describe what you saw and what you expected.

---

👤 Author

Built with ❤️ by Bishwajit Garai

"Stop fighting your LLM infrastructure. Let LLMCycle handle it."

---

⭐ If LLMCycle saved you hours, please star the repo — it helps others find it.

⭐ Star on GitHub  ·  📦 PyPI  ·  🐛 Report Bug  ·  💡 Request Feature