Tutorials

Guides, walkthroughs, and integration how-tos.

The Cheapest Token Is a Cached One: Prompt Caching + Sticky Routing

Your agent sends the same system prompt, tool definitions, and schemas on every turn. Cache reads cost 0.1x to 0.5x of fresh input, but only if the next request lands on the provider holding the warm cache. Here's how caching and sticky routing work together, and how to confirm they're working.

July 21, 2026

Connect OpenClaw to OpenRouter

OpenClaw has built-in OpenRouter support. One command gives your agents one key, one bill, and automatic failover across 300+ models. Here's the setup and the fixes for the errors that trip people up.

June 18, 2026

How to Connect SillyTavern to OpenRouter (2026 Guide)

One OpenRouter key gives SillyTavern 300+ models in a single dropdown, many of them free to start. Here's the five-step connection, the roleplay models to try, and fixes for the errors users hit most.

June 18, 2026

Kilo Code + OpenRouter: Setup, Model Routing, and Free Models

Kilo Code is a bring-your-own-provider coding agent, so adding OpenRouter gives it one key for 300+ models, provider routing, and failover. Here's the three-step setup plus the kilo.json fields that control routing.

June 17, 2026

How to Use OpenAI Codex CLI with OpenRouter

Codex CLI supports custom OpenAI-compatible providers, so a small config.toml block routes it through OpenRouter. You get provider failover, usage tracking, and one key across every model, with no change to Codex itself.

June 17, 2026

How to Use Claude Code with OpenRouter

Route Claude Code through OpenRouter with three environment variables and no local proxy. You get provider failover, budget controls, and usage visibility on top of the same Anthropic models.

June 16, 2026

How to Use OpenRouter With Any Coding Agent or AI Tool

Any tool that speaks the OpenAI API works with OpenRouter after two changes, the base URL and the key. Here's the setup pattern and the tools that already support it.

June 16, 2026

Free LLM APIs Compared: Rate Limits, Models, and Real Costs (2026)

Stop guessing which free LLM API survives past a side project. Here's how OpenRouter, Groq, Gemini, and 10 more compare on limits, cost, and data use.

June 15, 2026

Keep Your Agent Running When Models Disappear

Anthropic restricted Claude Fable 5 just days after launch. If your code hard-codes a model slug, that becomes your outage too. Presets move model choice to the server so you can swap models, set fallbacks, and enforce a data policy without redeploying.

June 15, 2026

How to Use Hermes Agent with OpenRouter: Setup, Models & Routing

Hermes Agent has pushed over 17 trillion tokens through OpenRouter. Here's how to set it up, pick a model that clears the 64K context bar, and tune routing for cost and reliability.

June 12, 2026

How to Get the Lowest-Cost LLM Inference on OpenRouter

Append :floor for the cheapest provider, cap spend with max_price, and start free with 20+ zero-cost models. Plus the billing gotchas to avoid.

June 12, 2026

Gemini 2.5 Flash API - Pricing, Quickstart & Provider Comparison

Overpaying for reasoning you don't need? Learn how to configure Gemini 2.5 Flash API thinking budgets, compare providers, and make your first call in 5 minutes.

June 9, 2026

EU AI Act & Colorado ADMT Compliance: Human Oversight for AI Agents

Use the Agent SDK's human-in-the-loop (HITL) tools to meet AI agent compliance requirements from the EU AI Act, Colorado's Automated Decision-Making Technology law (SB26-189), and NIST AI RMF.

June 8, 2026

Human-in-the-Loop Tools for the Agent SDK

A new tool type in the OpenRouter Agent SDK lets your agent auto-resolve routine decisions and pause for human input on high-stakes ones, with two hooks and zero loop-management code.

May 8, 2026

Agent SDK: Building Multi-turn Agent Workflows on OpenRouter

The OpenRouter Agent SDK gives you callModel: one function that turns a chat completion into a multi-step agent with tool calls, stop conditions, and cost tracking across 400+ models.

April 24, 2026

Build Your Own Harness with the Agent SDK

Use the create-agent-tui and create-headless-agent skills to scaffold a personalized coding agent in minutes — with a terminal UI or headless for scripts and pipelines.

April 24, 2026

Distillable Models and Synthetic Data Pipelines with NeMo Data Designer

How to generate license-safe synthetic data workflows for model specialization

December 24, 2025

Presets: How To Seamlessly Transfer Model Configurations Across Apps

Customize once and use everywhere. Server-side presets now simplify your model workflows.

July 29, 2025

Use OpenRouter Models in Cursor: Try it with Moonshot AI's Kimi K2

Explore it in action: See how effortlessly you can run Kimi K2 in Cursor using OpenRouter’s flexible model routing.

July 14, 2025