SECURITY = {
    "api_key_storage": {
        "check": "API keys stored in secrets manager (not .env files on disk)",
        "verify": "grep -r 'sk-or-v1-' --include='*.py' --include='*.ts' . | grep -v node_modules",
        "pass": "Zero matches",
    },
    "key_rotation": {
        "check": "Keys rotated on 90-day schedule",
        "verify": "Check key creation dates in OpenRouter dashboard",
        "api": "GET /api/v1/keys (management key)",
    },
    "credit_limits": {
        "check": "Per-key credit limits set to isolate blast radius",
        "verify": "curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/auth/key -H 'Authorization: Bearer $KEY' | jq '.data.limit'",
        "pass": "Non-null limit value",
    },
    "secret_scanning": {
        "check": "CI pipeline includes secret scanning (gitleaks, trufflehog)",
        "verify": "Check CI config for secret scanning step",
    },
    "https_enforced": {
        "check": "All requests use https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
        "verify": "Grep codebase for 'http://openrouter' (should be zero)",
    },
}

Reliability Checklist

RELIABILITY = {
    "fallback_models": {
        "check": "Fallback chain configured for critical models",
        "config": """extra_body={"models": ["primary", "secondary", "tertiary"], "route": "fallback"}""",
    },
    "retry_logic": {
        "check": "Retry with exponential backoff for 429 and 5xx errors",
        "config": "OpenAI SDK max_retries=3 (built-in backoff)",
    },
    "timeouts": {
        "check": "Per-request timeout configured",
        "config": "OpenAI(timeout=30.0)  # 30s per request",
    },
    "circuit_breaker": {
        "check": "Circuit breaker on primary model (3 failures → fallback)",
        "verify": "Review client wrapper for circuit breaker pattern",
    },
    "max_tokens": {
        "check": "max_tokens set on EVERY request",
        "verify": "Grep codebase for .create( calls without max_tokens",
    },
}

Observability Checklist

OBSERVABILITY = {
    "structured_logging": {
        "check": "Every API call logged with generation_id, model, latency, tokens, cost",
        "fields": ["timestamp", "generation_id", "model", "latency_ms", "prompt_tokens",
                   "completion_tokens", "cost", "status", "user_id"],
    },
    "error_alerting": {
        "check": "Alerts on error rate spikes (>5% over 5 min window)",
        "metric": "count(status=error) / count(*) over sliding 5min window",
    },
    "latency_monitoring": {
        "check": "P50 and P95 latency tracked per model",
        "threshold": "P95 < 10s for standard models, P95 < 30s for reasoning models",
    },
    "cost_tracking": {
        "check": "Daily cost tracked and compared to budget",
        "api": "GET /api/v1/generation?id={gen_id} for exact per-request cost",
    },
    "credit_balance_alert": {
        "check": "Alert when credits drop below threshold",
        "api": "GET /api/v1/auth/key → .data.usage vs .data.limit",
    },
}

Pre-Launch Validation Script

#!/bin/bash
echo "=== OpenRouter Production Readiness ==="
PASS=0; FAIL=0

# 1. Auth works
echo -n "1. API Authentication: "
AUTH=$(curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/auth/key \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" | jq -r '.data.label // "FAIL"')
if [ "$AUTH" != "FAIL" ]; then echo "PASS ($AUTH)"; ((PASS++)); else echo "FAIL"; ((FAIL++)); fi

# 2. Credit limit set
echo -n "2. Credit Limit: "
LIMIT=$(curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/auth/key \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" | jq -r '.data.limit // "NONE"')
if [ "$LIMIT" != "NONE" ] && [ "$LIMIT" != "null" ]; then
  echo "PASS (\$$LIMIT)"; ((PASS++))
else echo "WARN (no limit set)"; ((FAIL++)); fi

# 3. Primary model available
echo -n "3. Primary Model Available: "
MODEL="anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet"
EXISTS=$(curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models | jq --arg m "$MODEL" '[.data[] | select(.id == $m)] | length')
if [ "$EXISTS" -gt 0 ]; then echo "PASS ($MODEL)"; ((PASS++)); else echo "FAIL"; ((FAIL++)); fi

# 4. Test request succeeds
echo -n "4. Test Request: "
TEST=$(curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"openai/gpt-4o-mini","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"hi"}],"max_tokens":1}' \
  | jq -r '.choices[0].message.content // "FAIL"')
if [ "$TEST" != "FAIL" ]; then echo "PASS"; ((PASS++)); else echo "FAIL"; ((FAIL++)); fi

# 5. No hardcoded keys
echo -n "5. No Hardcoded Keys: "
KEYS=$(grep -r "sk-or-v1-" --include="*.py" --include="*.ts" --include="*.js" . 2>/dev/null | grep -v node_modules | grep -v ".env" | wc -l)
if [ "$KEYS" -eq 0 ]; then echo "PASS"; ((PASS++)); else echo "FAIL ($KEYS found)"; ((FAIL++)); fi

echo ""
echo "Results: $PASS passed, $FAIL failed"
[ $FAIL -eq 0 ] && echo "READY FOR PRODUCTION" || echo "FIX FAILURES BEFORE LAUNCH"

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Fix
Production key exposed	Key logged or committed	Rotate immediately; deploy from secrets manager
No fallback configured	Primary model goes down	Add `models` array with `route: "fallback"`
Missing monitoring	Errors go undetected	Set up alerting before launch
No max_tokens	Runaway completion costs	Add max_tokens to every request

Enterprise Considerations

Run the validation script in CI as a pre-deploy gate
Set up runbooks for common failure scenarios: rate limiting, credit exhaustion, provider outage
Load test at 2x expected peak traffic to validate rate limits and fallback behavior
Document escalation paths: when to contact OpenRouter support vs handle internally
Review and update this checklist quarterly as OpenRouter adds features
Keep a "break glass" procedure for emergency key rotation

References

Examples | Errors
API Reference | Status

openrouter-prod-checklist

OpenRouter Production Checklist

Overview

Security Checklist