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Proxy OpenRouter Requests

OpenRouter provides a unified, OpenAI-compatible API that aggregates models from multiple providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and more).

This guide shows how to integrate APISIX with OpenRouter using the ai-proxy plugin. With provider set to openrouter, you do not need to set a custom endpoint.

Prerequisite(s)​

  • Install Docker.
  • Install cURL to send requests to the services for validation.
  • Follow the Getting Started Tutorial to start a new APISIX instance in Docker or on Kubernetes.

Obtain an OpenRouter API Key​

Create an account and API key by following the OpenRouter Quickstart. Optionally save the key to an environment variable:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  # replace with your API key

Create a Route to OpenRouter​

Create a route with the ai-proxy plugin as such:

curl "http://127.0.0.1:9180/apisix/admin/routes" -X PUT --data-binary @- <<EOF
{
  "id": "openrouter-chat",
  "uri": "/anything",
  "plugins": {
    "ai-proxy": {
      "provider": "openrouter",
      "auth": {
        "header": {
          "Authorization": "Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY"
        }
      },
      "options": {
        "model": "deepseek/deepseek-chat"
      }
    }
  }
}
EOF

❶ Set the provider to openrouter.

❷ Attach the OpenRouter API key using the Authorization header.

❸ Set a model supported by OpenRouter, for example deepseek/deepseek-chat.

Verify​

Send a request with the following prompts to the route:

curl "http://127.0.0.1:9080/anything" -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "messages": [
      {
        "role": "system",
        "content": "You are a computer scientist."
      },
      {
        "role": "user",
        "content": "Explain in one sentence what a Turing machine is."
      }
    ]
  }'

You should receive a response similar to the following:

{
  "id": "gen-1770023173-XYUZ4kUwUAWHwDMPLN20",
  "provider": "Novita",
  "model": "deepseek/deepseek-chat",
  ...
  "choices": [
    {
      "logprobs": null,
      "finish_reason": "stop",
      "native_finish_reason": "stop",
      "index": 0,
      "message": {
        "role": "assistant",
        "content": "A Turing machine is a theoretical computational model that manipulates symbols on an infinite tape according to a set of rules, simulating any algorithm's logic and serving as the foundation for modern computability theory.",
        "refusal": null,
        "reasoning": null
      }
    }
  ],
  ...
}

Next Steps​

You have learned how to integrate APISIX with OpenRouter. See the OpenRouter Quickstart and Models pages for more details.