Getting it into your agent
It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/chf3198/copilot-governancenpx agentmods add skills/chf3198/copilot-governance/openrouter-free-failoverWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/chf3198/copilot-governance/openrouter-free-failover)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/chf3198/copilot-governance/openrouter-free-failover"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/chf3198/copilot-governance/openrouter-free-failover/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/chf3198/copilot-governance/openrouter-free-failover"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/chf3198/copilot-governance/openrouter-free-failover.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00064 | $0.03773 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00032 | $0.01886 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00013 | $0.00755 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00377 |
Grade A, and why
openrouter-free-failover scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 10d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Makes network callslowCapability
Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.
| Check rate limit status | When failures increase | `curl https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/auth/key -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY"` | How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 328 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
OpenRouter Free Model Failover
Purpose
Ensure OpenClaw always uses free OpenRouter models with intelligent priority-based failover. No paid model should ever be invoked. The cascade is ranked by coding/agentic capability and falls over automatically on rate limits, downtime, moderation blocks, or context overflow.
Architecture (Two-Layer Failover)
Layer 1: OpenClaw-side fallback chain (primary)
OpenClaw's native failover via agents.defaults.model.primary + agents.defaults.model.fallbacks:
- Tries primary model first
- On ANY error (rate limit, auth, billing, timeout, overloaded), rotates to next fallback
- Exponential cooldown: 1min → 5min → 25min → 1hr cap
- Session-sticky: pins to working model until session reset or cooldown clears
FallbackSummaryErrorwhen all candidates exhausted (includes soonest cooldown expiry)
Layer 2: OpenRouter-side server failover (complementary)
OpenRouter's models array parameter handles per-request failover transparently:
- If a model returns error (429, 503, moderation, context overflow), tries next in array
- Pricing based on model actually used (all free = $0)
- Works automatically with OpenAI-compatible API
Combined: OpenClaw chains across models; within each model attempt, OpenRouter can cascade if the models param is forwarded.
Rate Limits (Critical Constraints)
| Constraint | Limit |
|---|---|
:free model requests per minute |
20 req/min |
| Daily limit (< 10 credits purchased) | 50 req/day |
| Daily limit (≥ 10 credits purchased) | 1,000 req/day |
| Negative credit balance | 402 errors even for free models |
Implications:
- Free tier (50/day) is extremely limited for agentic coding — consider purchasing 10 credits ($10 one-time) for 20x daily capacity
- 20 req/min shared across ALL free model calls on the key
- Multiple API keys do NOT bypass limits (governed globally per account)
- Different models have different per-model rate limits (spreading across models helps)
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 10d ago First seen · 328 lines · 64 tokens per session scan A 33466b5bc6a0
openrouter-free-failover is a skill published in the GitHub repository chf3198/copilot-governance (1 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 64 tokens to every session and 3,773 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.
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