AI Proxy

Local proxy router for AI API requests. Intercepts OpenAI-compatible calls from CLI tools and routes to DeepSeek, Claude, or OpenAI based on environment variables.

Install

cd ai-proxy
pip install -e .

Quick start

# Route all requests to DeepSeek (default)
export DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=sk-your-key
ai-proxy

# Route to Claude
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key
ai-proxy --target claude

# Or via env var
export AI_PROXY_TARGET=claude
ai-proxy

Point your CLI tools at http://localhost:11434/v1:

export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-proxy-placeholder-value
export OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1

Configuration

Env var	Default	Description
AI_PROXY_TARGET	deepseek	Provider: deepseek, claude, or openai
AI_PROXY_PORT	11434	Listen port
AI_PROXY_HOST	127.0.0.1	Bind address
AI_PROXY_MAP	—	Model name mappings: gpt-4->claude-sonnet-5,gpt-3.5->deepseek-chat
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY	—	DeepSeek API key
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	—	Anthropic API key
OPENAI_API_KEY	—	OpenAI API key

Model mapping

Map model names that tools send to provider-native models:

export AI_PROXY_MAP="gpt-4->claude-sonnet-5-20251001,gpt-3.5-turbo->deepseek-chat"

Endpoints

Path	Method	Description
/health	GET	Health check
/v1/models	GET	List models
/v1/chat/completions	POST	Chat completions (streaming + non-streaming)

Providers

DeepSeek

OpenAI-compatible passthrough. Sets DEEPSEEK_API_KEY. Base URL: https://api.deepseek.com.

Claude

Full OpenAI ↔ Anthropic format translation. Handles:

• System message extraction and merging
• Content block conversion (text, images, tool use, tool results)
• Tool/function definition translation
• Streaming SSE event conversion
• Model name aliasing (claude-sonnet-5 → claude-sonnet-5-20251001)

OpenAI

Direct passthrough with configurable base URL (OPENAI_BASE_URL).

How it works

CLI tool ──OpenAI─format──► ai-proxy (:11434) ──native──► Claude / DeepSeek / OpenAI
         ◄──OpenAI─format──                           ◄──native──

1. Tool sends OpenAI-format request to http://localhost:11434/v1/chat/completions
2. Proxy reads AI_PROXY_TARGET to pick provider
3. If provider speaks different format (Claude), proxy translates
4. Response translated back to OpenAI format
5. Tool receives standard OpenAI response — doesn't know the difference

CLI

ai-proxy [--target deepseek|claude|openai] [--port 11434] [--host 127.0.0.1] [--verbose]