Use OpenRouter in Codex CLI

Steps

1. 1
   Step 1.

   Install Codex CLI by following the instructions in the openai/codex GitHub repo.

2. 2
   Step 2.

   Create an OpenRouter API key at openrouter.ai/keys (it starts with sk-or-...).

3. 3
   Step 3.

   Create or edit ~/.codex/config.toml.

   TOML

   Copy

   model_provider = "openrouter"
   model_reasoning_effort = "high"
   model="~openai/gpt-sol-latest"
   
   [model_providers.openrouter]
   name = "openrouter"
   base_url="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
   
   [model_providers.openrouter.auth]
   command = "sh"
   args = ["-c", "echo $OPENROUTER_API_KEY"]

4. 4
   Step 4.

   On Windows, use the PowerShell auth block instead.

   TOML

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   [model_providers.openrouter.auth]
   command = "powershell"
   args = ["-NoProfile", "-Command", "Write-Output $env:OPENROUTER_API_KEY"]

5. 5
   Step 5.

   Export your key in your shell profile (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.config/fish/config.fish).

   Terminal

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   export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="sk-or-..."

6. 6
   Step 6.

   On Windows, set it as a user-level variable, then fully restart Codex.

   Terminal

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   setx OPENROUTER_API_KEY "sk-or-..."

7. 7
   Step 7.

   Start Codex in your project.

   Terminal

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   cd /path/to/your/project
   codex