openrouter-mcp

Remote MCP server that lets Claude invoke third-party models (Grok, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek — anything OpenRouter carries) as tools mid-conversation. The OpenRouter API key never leaves this server.

Tools exposed

• ask_model — { model, prompt, system?, temperature?, max_tokens?, chat_id? } → model reply + token/cost footer. Pass chat_id (any string you invent) to make the conversation sticky: the server keeps the transcript and replays it on every call, so the model remembers earlier turns. Different calls on one chat may use different models — they share the transcript.

• list_models — { search?, limit? } → matching OpenRouter model IDs with context length and pricing

• list_chats — active sticky chats with turn count, last model, total cost, last activity

• get_chat — { chat_id } → full transcript of one sticky chat

Related MCP server: MCP OpenAI Server

Deploy (Render)

1. Push this repo to GitHub, create a Web Service on Render pointing at it.

   • Build: npm install · Start: npm start (Render injects PORT)

2. Environment variables:

   • OPENROUTER_API_KEY — from https://openrouter.ai/keys (set a spend limit on the key)

   • AUTH_TOKEN — generate one: node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(24).toString('base64url'))"

   • APP_URL — optional, your Render URL (OpenRouter attribution header)

3. Sanity check: GET https://your-app.onrender.com/healthz → {"ok":true}

Also runs fine on the SOCKS5-proxy VPS with pm2 + a reverse proxy for TLS — claude.ai requires HTTPS for connectors.

Connect to claude.ai

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → URL:

https://your-app.onrender.com/mcp/<AUTH_TOKEN>

No OAuth config needed — the token in the path is the auth. Then in any chat, enable the connector and ask Claude to ask_model with e.g. x-ai/grok-4.

Notes

• Stateless transport: every request builds a fresh server instance. No sessions to lose when Render cold-starts or Starlink blips.

• Sticky chats are in-memory only: they survive across requests but are lost on restart/redeploy (and Render free-tier sleep). Capped at 100 chats / 200 messages each, LRU-evicted. A failed model call never creates or grows a chat.

• The secret lives in the URL path, so treat the connector URL itself as a credential. Rotate AUTH_TOKEN if it leaks.

• Free-tier Render sleeps after idle; first call after a nap takes ~30s. Fine for this use case.