OpenRouter has rebuilt its automatic model selector and introduced Auto Code, a separate router tuned for coding agents. Applications can use the new services by sending requests to `openrouter/auto` or `openrouter/auto-code` instead of naming a fixed model.
The routers evaluate 11 characteristics of a request, including task difficulty, speed needs, vision requirements and whether the work depends on a codebase. They combine that assessment with live pricing, provider health and cache state, then choose both a model and reasoning effort from the pool permitted by the customer’s policies. Restrictions such as zero data retention, provider exclusions and bring-your-own-key settings still apply.
OpenRouter claims Auto Code matched Claude Opus 5.5 across five internal benchmarks at 74% lower cost per task. It also says the rebuilt general router made four times fewer invalid tool calls in beta and stayed on the same model for nearly nine of every 10 agent turns to preserve prompt caches.
Those performance figures are vendor-reported. Routing metadata and a new insights panel let users inspect why a model was selected rather than treating the choice as a hidden decision.