Getting Started with KRouter

KRouter is a local LLM proxy daemon that intercepts requests from your AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, Hermes) and routes them to the cheapest available provider automatically.

Installation

macOS

Download the latest DMG from the download page or run:

# macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel)
curl -fsSL https://github.com/kinthaiofficial/krouter/releases/latest/download/krouter-darwin.dmg -o krouter.dmg
open krouter.dmg

Linux

# Debian/Ubuntu
curl -fsSL https://github.com/kinthaiofficial/krouter/releases/latest/download/krouter-linux.deb -o krouter.deb
sudo dpkg -i krouter.deb

# RPM-based (Fedora, RHEL)
curl -fsSL https://github.com/kinthaiofficial/krouter/releases/latest/download/krouter-linux.rpm -o krouter.rpm
sudo rpm -i krouter.rpm

Windows

Download the installer from the download page and run krouter-setup.exe.

How It Works

KRouter runs a local daemon on port 8402 that:

Scans your existing agent configurations (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.)
Inherits their API keys and provider endpoints automatically
Evaluates every outgoing request against all connected providers in real time
Forwards the request to the cheapest compatible provider

Same-protocol routing only. An Anthropic-protocol request routes only to Anthropic-compatible providers. An OpenAI-protocol request routes only to OpenAI-compatible providers. No cross-protocol conversion occurs — your request arrives at the provider exactly as your agent sent it.

Starting KRouter

krouter start

KRouter starts in the background. To verify it’s running:

krouter status

Configuring Your Agents

KRouter connects automatically to agents it detects. You do not need to change your agent configuration.

If your agent is running on a non-standard path, open the KRouter dashboard at http://localhost:8403 and update the path there.

Manual agent path (if needed)

In the dashboard, go to Agents → Add path and enter the path to your agent’s configuration file.

Routing Modes

KRouter supports three built-in routing presets:

Mode	Behaviour
Saver	Always picks the cheapest provider
Balanced	Cheapest provider within 20% of the top-quality option
Quality	Highest-ranked provider for the model family

Change the mode in the dashboard or via CLI:

krouter mode saver
krouter mode balanced
krouter mode quality

Budget Control

Set a daily spend limit to prevent runaway costs:

krouter budget set 5.00   # $5.00 USD daily hard stop

KRouter sends SSE alerts at 80% and 95% of the limit. At 100%, all requests are blocked until the next day.

View today’s spend:

krouter budget status

Viewing Logs

krouter logs          # tail live request log
krouter logs --today  # today's requests only

Stopping KRouter

krouter stop

KRouter vs LiteLLM

	KRouter	LiteLLM
Setup	Zero config — inherits agent keys	Manual key entry per provider
Agent support	Auto-detects Claude Code, Cursor, etc.	Generic OpenAI proxy
Protocol	Same-protocol routing only	Cross-protocol translation
Budget alerts	Built-in SSE alerts	Not included
Runs locally	Yes	Self-hosted or cloud

How to save Claude API costs

KRouter’s most common use case is cutting Claude Code costs by routing routine requests (code explanation, linting, simple Q&A) to cheaper DeepSeek or Gemini endpoints while keeping complex reasoning on Claude.

The Balanced preset handles this automatically — it picks the cheapest provider that scores within 20% of Claude’s quality tier for each request type.

Uninstalling KRouter

krouter stop
krouter uninstall     # removes daemon and config (~/.kinthai/krouter/)

This does not modify your agent configurations.

Need help? Open an issue on GitHub.