Introducing Claude Code Router: Smart Model Routing & Real-Time Cost Optimization
Claude Code Router redefines AI-powered development by intelligently orchestrating coding requests across a diverse ecosystem of large language models. Built as an open-source, production-ready Node.js CLI extension to Anthropic’s Claude Code, it transforms static model usage into a dynamic, context-aware routing engine. Rather than locking developers into a single LLM—regardless of task complexity, latency tolerance, or budget constraints—the router evaluates each coding request in real time and dispatches it to the optimal model based on purpose, performance profile, and cost efficiency. Supported providers include OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Ollama (for local inference), Google Gemini, and Volcengine—enabling seamless hybrid workflows that blend cloud scalability with on-device privacy and affordability.
Getting Started in Minutes
Installation is streamlined and developer-first. With Node.js and npm already installed, run npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code to set up the base CLI, then add intelligent routing with npm install -g @musistudio/claude-code-router. This registers the ccr command globally. Launch your enhanced coding assistant with ccr code. For granular control, create or edit ~/.claude-code-router/config.json to define provider credentials, model availability, and role-based routing policies—including defaults for everyday tasks, dedicated “think” models for complex reasoning, lightweight “background” models for low-priority automation, and long-context specialists for repository-scale analysis. Once configured, all interactions remain intuitive: type as usual in Claude Code—and behind the scenes, the router makes intelligent, real-time decisions about where—and how—to execute each request.