Live model catalog: kRouter fetches every provider model in real time

The worst part of every AI tool is the stale model dropdown. A new model drops on Tuesday, and you wait a week for the app to ship an update that adds it to the list. Meanwhile the API already serves it — you just cannot select it.

kRouter killed that problem. Instead of a hardcoded model list, it now fetches the live model catalog from every API-key provider in real time. New models show up the moment the provider publishes them.

What changed

Across v0.5.84–v0.5.90, kRouter replaced static model registries with live fetching:

• Live Model Catalog for every API-key provider (v0.5.86): the provider page queries the provider's own models endpoint and renders whatever it actually serves right now
• Live Health API + /v1/models cache + refresh de-dup (v0.5.84): model lists are cached with request de-duplication so a burst of clients does not hammer the upstream, and a live health API tracks each connection
• Live catalog on the provider page (v0.5.87): the per-provider detail page shows the real, current model list — not a maintained-by-hand array

Why it matters

Two concrete wins:

New models, day zero. When a provider ships a new model, you can select it immediately. There is no gap between "the API supports it" and "kRouter lets me pick it."

Honest lists. A hardcoded list drifts — models get renamed, deprecated, or gated behind tiers. A live catalog always reflects reality, so you never select a model that 404s.

The /v1/models endpoint respects modality too. After video generation shipped, /v1/models/video returns exactly the video models your providers publish (e.g. xai/grok-imagine-video) while the main /v1/models correctly keeps video out of the LLM list.

Query the catalog yourself

The live catalog is just the standard OpenAI /v1/models endpoint:

# Every model your connected providers currently serve
curl http://localhost:20128/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-krouter-local"
 
# Filter by modality
curl http://localhost:20128/v1/models/video \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-krouter-local"

Because the result is cached with refresh de-dup, calling it repeatedly is cheap — kRouter serves the cached list and refreshes in the background.

The redesigned provider page

Alongside live catalogs, v0.5.85 reshaped the per-provider detail page into a manifest-driven, editorial-bento layout. A new capability manifest reads every provider category map and returns one unified shape — tier, auth modes, links, features, notices — so the page adapts to what each provider actually is:

• A ProviderHero with brand-color accent and a tier chip (free / free tier / OAuth / API key / cookie)
• ConnectKit with five auth-mode variants — a one-click "Connect for free" card, a "Sign in with X" OAuth card, a "Paste your API key" card, and so on — instead of one branchy empty state
• Live model chips pulled straight from the provider's current catalog

Browse the result on the providers page — every one of kRouter's 90+ providers renders from the same manifest, but each one looks like itself.

Get started

npm install -g @sifxprime/krouter
krouter -t

Connect any API-key provider and its live model list populates automatically. See /providers for the full catalog and /install to get running in 30 seconds.