feat: release v1.2.0 — session pooling, model caching, backoff, safety guards

- Connection pooling via requests.Session

- Model list caching with 5-min TTL and valve fingerprint

- Exponential backoff with jitter on transient errors

- Citation URL sanitization and base URL validation

- Error/empty-messages guards, fallback deduplication

- deepcopy payload, response.close() in finally blocks

- Specific HTTP error messages (429/402/401/403)

- Removed pre-flight /auth/key check (single round-trip)

- Updated tests (195/195), docs, and metadata

Author: sena-labs

.gitignore

@@ -37,3 +37,6 @@ htmlcov/
 
 # Logs
 *.log
+
+tmpclaude-*
+nul

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -5,6 +5,61 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/),
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 
+## [1.2.0] - 2026-02-17
+
+### Added
+
+- **Connection pooling** via `requests.Session` for better performance across multiple API calls
+- **Model list caching** with 5-minute TTL and valve-fingerprint invalidation — avoids redundant API calls when reopening the model selector
+- **Exponential backoff with jitter** on transient errors (Timeout, ConnectionError) — `min(2^attempt + random, 30s)`
+- **Fallback deduplication** — duplicate models in `FALLBACK_MODELS` are silently removed
+- **Citation URL sanitization** — non-HTTP URLs are filtered out; parentheses in URLs are percent-encoded
+- **Base URL validation** — `OPENROUTER_BASE_URL` must start with `https://` or `http://` (Pydantic field_validator)
+- **"error" model guard** — selecting the error pseudo-model returns an actionable message instead of hitting the API
+- **Empty messages guard** — returns a clear error if the message list is empty
+- **Fallback model attribution** — non-stream responses show "Responded by: model-id" when a fallback model handled the request
+- **HTTP 502 auth detection** — Clerk 502 errors (malformed API key) are now caught at model-list time
+
+### Changed
+
+- Minimum requirements bumped: `requests>=2.20`, `pydantic>=2.0`
+- Error prefix changed from "OpenRouter Pipe Error" to "OpenRouter Error" for cleaner UX
+- HTTP error messages now include specific guidance per status code (429=rate limit, 402=credits, 401=key, 403=access)
+- Empty API response returns an informative message instead of an empty string
+- Timeout error messages now show the configured timeout value and suggest increasing it
+- Improved all valve descriptions for clarity and actionability
+- Pre-flight `/auth/key` check removed — auth errors are now detected directly from the `/models` response (eliminates one HTTP round-trip)
+- `_prepare_payload` uses `copy.deepcopy` instead of shallow `body.copy()` to prevent mutation of nested structures
+- `_build_headers` uses cached env vars (`WEBUI_URL`, `WEBUI_NAME`) instead of calling `os.getenv()` on every request
+- `FREE_ONLY` pricing comparison uses `float()` instead of string comparison
+- Model cache key includes `MODEL_PREFIX` to prevent stale results after prefix changes
+- Removed unused `_API_PATH_AUTH` constant and `auth_url` property
+
+### Fixed
+
+- Fixed potential payload mutation when `ENABLE_CACHE_CONTROL` is active (deepcopy prevents side effects)
+- Fixed potential `IndexError` on stream chunks with empty `choices` array
+- Fixed stream error handler not caching response body before closing connection
+- Safe `isinstance(err, dict)` checks before calling `.get()` on error objects
+- `_close_think_tag()` helper eliminates duplicated think-tag closure logic (was 5x repeated)
+- `_stream_response` now closes the response in a `finally` block even on consumer `break`
+
+## [1.1.1] - 2026-02-17
+
+### Changed
+
+- Pre-compiled citation regex at module level for better performance
+- Added docstrings to all public and internal methods (`pipe`, `_prepare_payload`, `_stream_response`, `_non_stream_response`, `_retryable_request`, `_build_headers`)
+- Translated TESTING.md to English for international audience
+
+### Fixed
+
+- Test suite now runs on Windows without requiring `PYTHONUTF8=1` (UTF-8 stdout wrapper)
+- Fixed stale test count in CONTRIBUTING.md and TESTING.md (170 → 193)
+- Fixed typo in TESTING.md pre-release checklist
+- Updated SECURITY.md to list v1.1.x as supported
+- Updated `function.json` metadata date
+
 ## [1.1.0] - 2026-02-15
 
 ### Added

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ python test_pipe.py
 ### Running Tests
 
 ```bash
-python test_pipe.py           # Unit tests (170 tests)
+python test_pipe.py           # Unit tests (195 tests)
 python integration_test.py    # Live API tests (requires OPENROUTER_API_KEY)
 ```
 

README.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 <img src="https://capsule-render.vercel.app/api?type=waving&color=0:0d1117,50:1a1b2e,100:2d1b69&height=180&section=header&text=OpenRouter%20Pipe&fontColor=a78bfa&fontSize=42&animation=fadeIn&fontAlignY=36&desc=Open%20WebUI%20%E2%86%94%20OpenRouter%20Integration&descAlignY=56&descColor=8b5cf6" width="100%"/>
 
-<a href="https://github.com/sena-labs/OpenRouter-Pipe"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/version-1.1.0-0d1117?style=for-the-badge&labelColor=7c3aed&color=0d1117" alt="version"></a>&nbsp;
+<a href="https://github.com/sena-labs/OpenRouter-Pipe"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/version-1.2.0-0d1117?style=for-the-badge&labelColor=7c3aed&color=0d1117" alt="version"></a>&nbsp;
 <a href="https://www.python.org/"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/python-≥3.10-0d1117?style=for-the-badge&logo=python&logoColor=white&labelColor=3776AB" alt="python"></a>&nbsp;
 <a href="LICENSE"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-0d1117?style=for-the-badge&labelColor=blue" alt="license"></a>&nbsp;
 <a href="https://docs.openwebui.com"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Open%20WebUI-compatible-0d1117?style=for-the-badge&logo=data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZpZXdCb3g9IjAgMCAyNCAyNCIgZmlsbD0id2hpdGUiPjxwYXRoIGQ9Ik0xMiAyQzYuNDggMiAyIDYuNDggMiAxMnM0LjQ4IDEwIDEwIDEwIDEwLTQuNDggMTAtMTBTMTcuNTIgMiAxMiAyem0wIDE4Yy00LjQyIDAtOC0zLjU4LTgtOHMzLjU4LTggOC04IDggMy41OCA4IDgtMy41OCA0LTggOHoiLz48L3N2Zz4=&logoColor=white&labelColor=1a1a2e" alt="openwebui"></a>
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ Provider routing · Reasoning tokens · Streaming · Fallbacks · Cache control
 OpenRouter Pipe is the most feature-complete integration between [Open WebUI](https://docs.openwebui.com) and [OpenRouter](https://openrouter.ai). It gives you access to **300+ AI models** — including GPT-5, Claude 4, Gemini 2.5, Llama 4, DeepSeek R1, and more — directly in your Open WebUI interface, with zero configuration beyond an API key.
 
 **Key differentiators:**
-- **Pre-flight API key validation** — invalid keys are caught before you see any models, not after you send a message
+- **Pre-flight API key validation** — invalid keys are caught at model-fetch time, not after you send a message
 - **Full provider routing** — sort, prefer, exclude, and require parameters across providers
 - **Native reasoning tokens** — `<think>` blocks with configurable effort levels
 - **Production-grade reliability** — retry logic, fallback models, mid-stream error recovery
@@ -173,7 +173,7 @@ It also removes `user` when sent as a dict (OWUI format) since OpenRouter expect
 |-----------|----------|
 | Open WebUI | v0.4.0+ |
 | Python | 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13 |
-| Pydantic | v1.x and v2.x |
+| Pydantic | v2.x (v2.0+) |
 | OpenRouter API | v1 |
 
 ---
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@ It also removes `user` when sent as a dict (OWUI format) since OpenRouter expect
 OpenRouter-Pipe/
 ├── openrouter_pipe.py      # Main pipe source (install this in Open WebUI)
 ├── function.json           # Open WebUI community manifest (metadata, tags, categories)
-├── test_pipe.py            # Unit test suite (193 tests)
+├── test_pipe.py            # Unit test suite (195 tests)
 ├── integration_test.py     # Live API integration tests (47 tests)
 ├── TESTING.md              # Pre-release testing checklist
 ├── SECURITY.md             # Security policy and vulnerability reporting

SECURITY.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 ## Supported Versions
 
 | Version | Supported |
-|---------|-----------|
+|---------|-----------|| 1.2.x   | Yes       || 1.1.x   | Yes       |
 | 1.0.x   | Yes       |
 | < 1.0   | No        |