OpenRouter Pipe

Access 300+ AI models through OpenRouter directly inside Open WebUI — with provider routing, reasoning tokens, streaming, fallbacks, and cache control out of the box.

Feature gallery

Model selector

Models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral, DeepSeek and more — each with its provider icon.

Reasoning tokens

<think> blocks streamed in real time with configurable effort levels.

Provider routing in action

Sort, prefer, exclude and require parameters across providers per request.

Features
Requirements
Installation
Usage
Configuration
Architecture
Development
Contributing
Troubleshooting
FAQ
License

Features

Manifold pipe — exposes all OpenRouter models as native Open WebUI models in the model selector.
Provider routing — sort by price, throughput, or latency; prefer or exclude specific providers; enforce require_parameters.
Reasoning tokens — <think> blocks streamed in real time with configurable effort (low, medium, high).
Streaming — full SSE streaming with mid-stream error handling and automatic <think> closure on error.
Model fallbacks — automatic failover to one or more backup models via FALLBACK_MODELS.
Middle-out compression — fits long prompts within context windows (transforms: ["middle-out"]).
Cache control — Anthropic-style cache_control injection on the longest message chunk.
Citations — [n] references from web-search-enabled models are converted to markdown links.
Provider icons — 22 provider logos synced directly into Open WebUI's model database.
Retry logic — exponential backoff with jitter on timeout and connection errors.
FREE_ONLY mode — filter to show only free-tier models (:free suffix or 0/0 pricing).
Pre-flight validation — invalid API keys are caught at model-fetch time, not after sending a message.

Requirements

Open WebUI ≥ 0.4.0 running locally or in Docker.
OpenRouter API key — free account, key starts with sk-or-.
Python ≥ 3.10 (managed by Open WebUI; no separate install needed for the pipe).

Installation

From Open WebUI Community

Search for "OpenRouter Pipe" on openwebui.com and install it directly from the community hub — no copy-paste required.

Manual install

Copy the full content of openrouter_pipe.py.
In Open WebUI, navigate to Admin Panel → Functions.
Click + Add Function (or Import).
Paste the code and save.
Enable the function using the toggle.
Click the ⚙️ Valves icon and enter your OPENROUTER_API_KEY.

All OpenRouter models will appear in the model selector immediately.

Note: You can also set OPENROUTER_API_KEY as a server environment variable instead of entering it in Valves.

From source

git clone https://github.com/sena-labs/Open-WebUI-Pipe-OpenRouter.git
cd Open-WebUI-Pipe-OpenRouter
pip install -r requirements.txt
python test_pipe.py        # 252 tests — verify everything is green

Usage

All behavior is controlled through Valves in the Open WebUI admin panel. Every valve accepts an environment variable fallback (see Configuration).

Common valve combinations

Goal	Valves to set
Show only OpenAI and Anthropic models	`MODEL_PROVIDERS = openai,anthropic`
Show only free models	`FREE_ONLY = true`
Use DeepSeek for reasoning	select `deepseek/deepseek-r1`, `INCLUDE_REASONING = true`
Route cheapest provider first	`PROVIDER_SORT = price`
Add a fallback model	`FALLBACK_MODELS = anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet`

Reasoning tokens

When INCLUDE_REASONING is enabled (default), the pipe requests reasoning tokens from models that support them. The internal reasoning appears inside <think>…</think> blocks before the main response.

Set REASONING_EFFORT to low, medium, or high to control how much compute the model allocates to reasoning. Leave it empty to let the model decide.

Citations

Models with web-search capabilities return citation annotations. The pipe automatically converts [1], [2] references to [[1]](url) markdown links and appends a numbered Citations: section at the end of the response.

Configuration

Every valve accepts an environment variable fallback. The table below lists both.

Core

Valve	Env Var	Default	Description
`OPENROUTER_API_KEY`	`OPENROUTER_API_KEY`	`""`	Your OpenRouter API key
`OPENROUTER_BASE_URL`	`OPENROUTER_BASE_URL`	`https://openrouter.ai/api/v1`	API endpoint

Reasoning

Valve	Env Var	Default	Description
`INCLUDE_REASONING`	`OPENROUTER_INCLUDE_REASONING`	`true`	Request reasoning tokens (`<think>` blocks)
`REASONING_EFFORT`	`OPENROUTER_REASONING_EFFORT`	`""`	Effort level: `low`, `medium`, `high`, or empty

Display & Filtering

Valve	Env Var	Default	Description
`MODEL_PREFIX`	—	`None`	Custom prefix for model names (e.g. `🔥` )
`MODEL_PROVIDERS`	`OPENROUTER_MODEL_PROVIDERS`	`ALL`	Provider filter (e.g. `openai,anthropic`). `ALL` means no filter
`INVERT_PROVIDER_LIST`	`OPENROUTER_INVERT_PROVIDER_LIST`	`false`	Treat `MODEL_PROVIDERS` as an exclusion list
`FREE_ONLY`	`OPENROUTER_FREE_ONLY`	`false`	Show only free-tier models

Provider Routing

Valve	Env Var	Default	Description
`PROVIDER_SORT`	`OPENROUTER_PROVIDER_SORT`	`""`	Sort: `price`, `throughput`, `latency`
`PROVIDER_ORDER`	`OPENROUTER_PROVIDER_ORDER`	`""`	Preferred providers (comma-separated)
`PROVIDER_IGNORE`	`OPENROUTER_PROVIDER_IGNORE`	`""`	Excluded providers (comma-separated)
`REQUIRE_PARAMETERS`	`OPENROUTER_REQUIRE_PARAMETERS`	`false`	Only use providers that support all request parameters
`DATA_COLLECTION`	`OPENROUTER_DATA_COLLECTION`	`allow`	Data policy: `allow` or `deny`

Advanced

Valve	Env Var	Default	Description
`FALLBACK_MODELS`	`OPENROUTER_FALLBACK_MODELS`	`""`	Fallback model IDs (comma-separated)
`ENABLE_MIDDLE_OUT`	`OPENROUTER_ENABLE_MIDDLE_OUT`	`false`	Middle-out compression for long prompts
`ENABLE_CACHE_CONTROL`	`OPENROUTER_ENABLE_CACHE_CONTROL`	`false`	Inject Anthropic `cache_control` on the longest message
`SYNC_PROVIDER_ICONS`	`OPENROUTER_SYNC_ICONS`	`true`	Sync provider icons into Open WebUI's model database

Network

Valve	Env Var	Default	Description
`REQUEST_TIMEOUT`	`OPENROUTER_REQUEST_TIMEOUT`	`90`	HTTP timeout in seconds
`MAX_RETRIES`	—	`2`	Auto-retry count on transient errors

Architecture

The pipe implements the Manifold pattern: one pipe entry point that surfaces multiple models.

Layer	Files	Responsibility
Entry points	`Pipe.pipes()`, `Pipe.pipe()`	Model listing and chat routing
Payload	`_prepare_payload()`	Sanitize OWUI internals, inject routing and reasoning
Transport	`_retryable_request()`	Retry wrapper with exponential backoff
Streaming	`_stream_response()`	SSE parser, `<think>` management, mid-stream errors
Non-streaming	`_non_stream_response()`	JSON response, body-level error detection
Enrichment	`_inject_cache_control()`, `_insert_citations()`	Post-processing

Open-WebUI-Pipe-OpenRouter/
├── openrouter_pipe.py      # Main pipe source — install this in Open WebUI
├── function.json           # Open WebUI community manifest
├── test_pipe.py            # Unit test suite (252 tests)
├── integration_test.py     # Live API integration tests (47 tests)
├── TESTING.md              # Manual pre-release checklist
├── SECURITY.md             # Security policy
├── CONTRIBUTING.md         # Contribution guidelines
├── CHANGELOG.md            # Version history
├── LICENSE                 # MIT License
├── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
└── .github/
    ├── workflows/
    │   └── tests.yml       # CI pipeline (Python 3.10–3.13)
    └── ISSUE_TEMPLATE/
        ├── bug_report.yml
        └── feature_request.yml

The pipe strips these Open WebUI-internal keys before forwarding to OpenRouter:

_OWUI_INTERNAL_KEYS = {
    "chat_id", "title", "task", "task_id", "features", "citations",
    "metadata", "files", "tool_ids", "session_id", "message_id"
}

It also removes user when sent as a dict (Open WebUI format) since OpenRouter expects a string.

Development

python test_pipe.py                       # Unit tests (252 tests)
python integration_test.py               # Live API tests (requires OPENROUTER_API_KEY)

The unit test suite covers: valve defaults, payload preparation, streaming and non-streaming responses, retry logic, citation injection, model listing, and pipe() routing.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full playbook.

Troubleshooting

"OpenRouter API key not configured"

Solution

Set your API key in Admin Panel → Functions → OpenRouter Pipe → Valves (⚙️), or set the OPENROUTER_API_KEY environment variable on the server and restart Open WebUI.

"Invalid API key (HTTP 401 / 502)"

Solution

Your key is incorrect or malformed. Retrieve a valid key from openrouter.ai/keys — it should start with sk-or-.

"Rate limit exceeded (HTTP 429)"

Solution

Wait a moment and retry. MAX_RETRIES only retries on network timeouts and connection failures — HTTP 429 errors are returned immediately. Consider upgrading your OpenRouter plan for higher limits.

"Insufficient credits (HTTP 402)"

Solution

Add credits at openrouter.ai/credits.

"Request timed out"

Solution

Increase REQUEST_TIMEOUT in Valves (default: 90 seconds), or try a faster model. Some large reasoning models can take over a minute for complex prompts.

No models appear in the selector

Solution

Verify your API key is valid (a single "error" model appears if it is not).
If MODEL_PROVIDERS is set, confirm the provider names are lowercase: openai, anthropic, google.
If FREE_ONLY is enabled, some providers may have no free models — try disabling it.
Set MODEL_PROVIDERS = ALL to show the full catalog.

Models load but chat returns errors

Solution

Some models may be temporarily unavailable. Try a different model or check status.openrouter.ai.

FAQ

Q: Does this work with Open WebUI's native tool calling?

A: Open WebUI manages tool calling in an iterative loop: when the pipe's response contains tool calls, Open WebUI executes them, appends the results as role: "tool" messages, and re-invokes the pipe with the updated thread. The pipe forwards the full message list to OpenRouter on each invocation. Whether a model can generate tool calls depends on OpenRouter's provider support for that model.

Q: Why does FREE_ONLY include models without a :free suffix?

A: Some models are listed as free on OpenRouter without carrying a :free suffix in their ID. The pipe uses a two-pass check: first it looks for the :free suffix, then it falls back to inspecting the pricing.prompt and pricing.completion fields returned by the OpenRouter /models endpoint — if both are 0, the model is treated as free.

Q: Can I use multiple provider filters at once?

A: MODEL_PROVIDERS accepts a comma-separated list (e.g. openai,anthropic). Enable INVERT_PROVIDER_LIST to turn it into an exclusion list instead.

Q: How do fallback models work?

A: FALLBACK_MODELS adds extra model IDs to the models array in the OpenRouter request. If the primary model fails, OpenRouter automatically tries the next one. Non-streaming responses include a "Responded by: model-id" attribution when a fallback handled the request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.

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OpenRouter Pipe

Feature gallery

Model selector

Reasoning tokens

Provider routing in action

Table of Contents

Features

Requirements

Installation

From Open WebUI Community

Manual install

From source

Usage

Common valve combinations

Reasoning tokens

Citations

Configuration

Core

Reasoning

Display & Filtering

Provider Routing

Advanced

Network

Architecture

Development

Contributing

Troubleshooting

"OpenRouter API key not configured"

Solution

"Invalid API key (HTTP 401 / 502)"

Solution

"Rate limit exceeded (HTTP 429)"

Solution

"Insufficient credits (HTTP 402)"

Solution

"Request timed out"

Solution

No models appear in the selector

Solution

Models load but chat returns errors

Solution

FAQ

License