micsapp Openrouter Reference Architecture
Overview
This skill provides reference architecture patterns for building production-grade systems with OpenRouter, from simple single-service setups to distributed microservice architectures.
Prerequisites
- OpenRouter integration
- Understanding of distributed system patterns
Instructions
- Design the API gateway layer: Place a gateway in front of OpenRouter calls that handles authentication, rate limiting, request validation, and routing
- Implement the service layer: Create dedicated AI service(s) that encapsulate all OpenRouter interactions, exposing clean internal APIs to your application
- Add async processing: Use a message queue (Redis, SQS, RabbitMQ) for non-real-time AI tasks; process them with worker services that can retry and scale independently
- Build the caching layer: Add Redis or Memcached between your service and OpenRouter for response caching, with cache-aside pattern and TTL-based invalidation
- Deploy observability: Implement distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry) across all layers so you can trace a user request through gateway -> service -> OpenRouter and back
Output
- Architecture diagram showing API gateway, AI service, cache, queue, and observability layers
- Service-level configuration templates for each component
- Capacity planning estimates based on expected request volume
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Single point of failure | No redundancy in AI service layer | Deploy at least 2 instances behind a load balancer |
| Queue backlog growing | Worker throughput < incoming rate | Scale workers horizontally; implement backpressure signaling |
| Cache stampede | Many requests for same uncached key simultaneously | Use cache locking or probabilistic early expiration |
See ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/errors.md for full error reference.
Examples
See ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/examples.md for runnable code samples.