OpenRouter Provider

Claude-mem supports OpenRouter as an alternative provider for observation extraction. OpenRouter provides a unified API to access 100+ models from different providers including Google, Meta, Mistral, DeepSeek, and many others—often with generous free tiers.

Why Use OpenRouter?

• Access to 100+ models: Choose from models across multiple providers through one API
• Free tier options: Several high-quality models are completely free to use
• Cost flexibility: Pay-as-you-go pricing on premium models with no commitments
• Errors throw clearly: 429s, 5xx, and network failures throw — leaving messages pending so they can be retried
• Hot-swappable: Switch providers without restarting the worker
• Multi-turn conversations: Full conversation history maintained across API calls

Free Models on OpenRouter

OpenRouter actively supports democratizing AI access by offering free models. These are production-ready models suitable for observation extraction.

Featured Free Models

Free Model Considerations

• Rate limits: Free models may have stricter rate limits than paid models
• Availability: Free capacity depends on provider partnerships and demand
• Queue times: During peak usage, requests may be queued briefly
• Max tokens: Most free models support 65,536 completion tokens

All free models support:

• Tool use and function calling
• Temperature and sampling controls
• Stop sequences
• Streaming responses

Getting an API Key

1. Go to OpenRouter
2. Sign in with Google, GitHub, or email
3. Navigate to API Keys
4. Click Create Key
5. Copy and securely store your API key

Configuration

Settings

Using the Settings UI

1. Open the viewer at http://localhost:37777
2. Click the gear icon to open Settings
3. Under AI Provider, select OpenRouter
4. Enter your OpenRouter API key
5. Optionally select a different model

Settings are applied immediately—no restart required.

Manual Configuration

Edit ~/.claude-mem/settings.json:

{
  "CLAUDE_MEM_PROVIDER": "openrouter",
  "CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_API_KEY": "sk-or-v1-your-key-here",
  "CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_MODEL": "xiaomi/mimo-v2-flash:free"
}

Alternatively, set the API key via environment variable:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="sk-or-v1-your-key-here"

The settings file takes precedence over the environment variable.

Model Selection Guide

For Free Usage (No Cost)

Recommended: xiaomi/mimo-v2-flash:free

• Best-in-class performance on coding benchmarks
• 256K context window handles large observations
• 65K max completion tokens
• Mixture-of-experts architecture (15B active parameters)

Alternatives:

• google/gemini-2.0-flash-exp:free - 1M context, Google's flagship
• deepseek/deepseek-r1:free - Excellent reasoning capabilities
• meta-llama/llama-3.1-70b-instruct:free - Strong general purpose

For Paid Usage (Higher Quality/Speed)

Context Window Management

OpenRouter agent implements intelligent context management to prevent runaway costs:

Automatic Truncation

The agent uses a sliding window strategy:

1. Checks if message count exceeds MAX_CONTEXT_MESSAGES (default: 20)
2. Checks if estimated tokens exceed MAX_TOKENS (default: 100,000)
3. If limits exceeded, keeps most recent messages only
4. Logs warnings with dropped message counts

Token Estimation

• Conservative estimate: 1 token ≈ 4 characters
• Used for proactive context management
• Actual usage logged from API response

Cost Tracking

Logs include detailed usage information:

OpenRouter API usage: {
  model: "xiaomi/mimo-v2-flash:free",
  inputTokens: 2500,
  outputTokens: 1200,
  totalTokens: 3700,
  estimatedCostUSD: "0.00",
  messagesInContext: 8
}

Provider Switching

You can switch between providers at any time:

• No restart required: Changes take effect on the next observation
• Conversation history preserved: When switching mid-session, the new provider sees the full conversation context
• Seamless transition: All providers use the same observation format

Switching via UI

1. Open Settings in the viewer
2. Change the AI Provider dropdown
3. The next observation will use the new provider

Switching via Settings File

{
  "CLAUDE_MEM_PROVIDER": "openrouter"
}

Error Behavior

If OpenRouter errors, claude-mem logs the failure and re-throws so the message stays pending for later retry. There is no Claude SDK fallback — earlier docs claimed automatic Claude fallback, but the wiring was never actually engaged in production (#2087). To switch providers, change CLAUDE_MEM_PROVIDER in settings.

Throwing conditions:

• Rate limiting (HTTP 429)
• Server errors (HTTP 500, 502, 503)
• Network issues (connection refused, timeout)
• 4xx errors other than 429
• Missing API key

Multi-Turn Conversation Support

OpenRouter agent maintains full conversation history across API calls:

Session Created
  ↓
Load Pending Messages (observations from queue)
  ↓
For each message:
  → Add to conversation history
  → Call OpenRouter API with FULL history
  → Parse XML response
  → Store observations in database
  → Sync to Chroma vector DB
  ↓
Session complete

This enables:

• Coherent multi-turn exchanges
• Context preservation across observations
• Seamless provider switching mid-session

Troubleshooting

"OpenRouter API key not configured"

Either:

• Set CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_API_KEY in ~/.claude-mem/settings.json, or
• Set the OPENROUTER_API_KEY environment variable

Rate Limiting

Free models may have rate limits during peak usage. If you hit rate limits:

• The agent throws and leaves the message pending — it will be retried later
• Consider switching to a different free model
• Add credits for premium model access

Model Not Found

Verify the model ID is correct:

• Check OpenRouter Models for current availability
• Use the :free suffix for free model variants
• Model IDs are case-sensitive

High Token Usage Warning

If you see warnings about high token usage (>50,000 per request):

• Reduce CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_MAX_CONTEXT_MESSAGES
• Reduce CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_MAX_TOKENS
• Consider a model with larger context window

Connection Errors

If you see connection errors:

• Check your internet connection
• Verify OpenRouter service status at status.openrouter.ai
• The agent throws and leaves the message pending for later retry

API Details

OpenRouter uses an OpenAI-compatible REST API:

Endpoint: https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions

Headers:

Authorization: Bearer {apiKey}
HTTP-Referer: https://github.com/thedotmack/claude-mem
X-Title: claude-mem
Content-Type: application/json

Request Format:

{
  "model": "xiaomi/mimo-v2-flash:free",
  "messages": [
    {"role": "system", "content": "..."},
    {"role": "user", "content": "..."}
  ],
  "temperature": 0.3,
  "max_tokens": 4096
}

Comparing Providers

Next Steps

• Configuration - Full settings reference
• Gemini Provider - Alternative free provider
• Getting Started - Basic usage guide
• Troubleshooting - Common issues