OrcaRouter
## What is OrcaRouter?
[OrcaRouter](https://www.orcarouter.ai) is an OpenAI-compatible LLM gateway: one endpoint, one API key, 160+ models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Qwen, DeepSeek, Kimi, Grok, MiniMax, and more. It routes your chat requests through whichever model you pick, with optional fallback chains for resilience.
## What this MCP does
OrcaRouter MCP exposes the gateway as 4 MCP tools so any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Zed, …) can browse the catalog, inspect models, and route chat completions — all from inside the chat.
### The 4 tools
- **`orcarouter_models_list`** — list 160+ models with live pricing, context window, and capabilities. Filter by provider, capability, or minimum context. *No API key required.*
- **`orcarouter_model_card`** — detailed info for one model: pricing (per-token and per-million), max output, modalities, supported endpoints, latency p50/p95. *No API key required.*
- **`orcarouter_providers_list`** — enumerate providers with model counts. *No API key required.*
- **`orcarouter_chat`** — single-turn chat with an optional fallback chain (up to 5 models, automatic retry on failure). For OpenAI reasoning models (gpt-5/o1/o3), `max_tokens` auto-translates to `max_completion_tokens` at the wire. *API key required.*
## What makes it different
Most LLM MCP servers require an API key just to discover what's available. **OrcaRouter's catalog tools work without one** — browse, compare, and pick a model first; add a key only when you actually want to route.
## Install
```
npx -y @orcarouter/mcp
```
Standard MCP client config:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"orcarouter": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@orcarouter/mcp"],
"env": {
"ORCAROUTER_API_KEY": "sk-or-..."
}
}
}
}
```
Leave `ORCAROUTER_API_KEY` empty for catalog-only browsing.
## Links
- npm: [`@orcarouter/mcp`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@orcarouter/mcp)
- Repo: [Continuum-AI-Corp/orcarouter-mcp-server](https://github.com/Continuum-AI-Corp/orcarouter-mcp-server)
- MCP Registry: `io.github.Continuum-AI-Corp/orcarouter-mcp`
- License: MIT