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Chuzom
Lightweight signal-driven LLM router for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, and Codex CLI
{
"mcpServers": {
"Chuzom": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "https://github.com/Chuzom/Chuzom"]
}
}
}Chuzom — Extend Your Claude Quota. 3× Longer Sessions.
⭐ Star on GitHub if Chuzom saves your quota ⭐
Help other developers discover automatic LLM routing
The Problem
You're on Claude Pro ($20/mo), Max ($100/mo), or Max ($200/mo) — a flat subscription, not pay-per-token.
But Claude Code routes every request through your quota: file reads, quick questions, routine edits, and complex reasoning all burn the same limited budget. Claude throttles after roughly 40–50 messages in a 5-hour rolling window.
The result: your session hits the wall in under 2 hours, and you wait.
| Prompt | Quota burned | Actually needs Claude? |
|---|---|---|
| "What does this function return?" | ✗ Yes | No |
| "List files matching *.test.ts" | ✗ Yes | No |
| "Write a test for this function" | ✗ Yes | Probably not |
| "Re-architect this auth system" | ✓ Yes | Yes |
Simple questions and complex reasoning cost the same quota. That's the inefficiency Chuzom fixes.
The Solution
Chuzom routes each prompt to the cheapest capable model before spending Claude quota.
Your IDE (Claude Code, Cursor, etc)
↓
[Chuzom Smart Router] ← analyzes complexity & task type
↓
├─ Simple tasks? → Ollama (local, free) 🌳
├─ Moderate tasks? → Codex CLI / Gemini CLI (free via your subscriptions)
└─ Complex tasks? → Claude (only when it truly needs it) 🔥
↓
Result + streaming progress + quota savings banner
🎯 chuzom → gemini-2.5-flash · code/moderate · 342ms · saved Claude quota!
A typical developer session burns ~200,000 Claude tokens. Routing ~80% of prompts to free models saves ~160,000 Claude tokens per session — the difference between hitting the limit in 2 hours vs. working a full uninterrupted day.
| Tool | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Ollama (local) | Free | Simple questions, syntax lookups, file ops |
| Codex CLI | Free (via GitHub Copilot) | Code generation, refactors, test writing |
| Gemini CLI | Free (via Google account) | Moderate reasoning, explanations, summaries |
| Claude | Your subscription quota | Complex reasoning, long context, architecture |
Why People Install This
AI coding tools send too many prompts to premium models by default.
That means:
- ❌ You waste paid tokens on simple questions
- ❌ You burn through Claude, Gemini, or OpenAI quota faster than necessary
- ❌ You stop working when one provider is rate-limited or down
Chuzom sits between your coding tool and your model providers. It classifies each prompt, tries the cheapest capable model first, and falls back automatically when needed.
You keep the same workflow. The router changes the model choice underneath.
⏱️ 3–5× Longer SessionsRoute 80% of prompts to free models — hit quota limits far less often |
✅ Quality PreservedPremium models only when the task truly needs it |
🛡️ Quota ProtectedAuto-downgrade near limits. No more rate-limit walls |
⚙️ Zero ConfigWorks out of the box with Claude Pro/Max subscription |
Real-World Savings
Typical Claude Code heavy user — mix of questions, code review, and debugging (~1,000 prompts/week):
| Approach | Claude tokens/week | Sessions per day before limit | Extra spend (if buying API) |
|---|---|---|---|
| All prompts → Claude | ~200,000 | 1–2 sessions | $18–40/week |
| Chuzom (smart routing) | ~40,000 | 6–8 sessions | $2–6/week |
For subscription users: Chuzom stretches one day's Claude quota across a full working week of sessions. No waiting for limits to reset. No switching to a worse model mid-task.
One Week with Chuzom — Real Numbers
A typical Claude Code heavy user sends ~800–1,200 prompts per week. Here's what routing looks like after 7 days:
| Metric | Without Chuzom | With Chuzom |
|---|---|---|
| Prompts routed to Claude (quota) | ~1,000 / week | ~240 / week |
| Prompts to Ollama (local, free) | 0 | ~520 / week |
| Prompts to Codex / Gemini CLI (prepaid) | 0 | ~240 / week |
| Claude quota consumed | 100% | ~24% |
| Sessions before hitting "usage limit" | 1–2 per day | 6–8 per day |
| Extra API spend (non-subscribers) | $18–40 / week | $2–6 / week |
"Sessions before hitting usage limit" — Claude Pro/Max throttles after roughly 40–50 Sonnet-class messages in a ~5-hour rolling window. Without routing, that budget burns in 1–2 work sessions per day. Chuzom routes ~75% of prompts to Ollama, Codex, or Gemini instead, so the same Claude quota now covers 6–8 sessions — typically a full working day without hitting a wall.
Why 75% of prompts don't need Claude
Claude Code routes nearly everything through your subscription by default: file reads, quick questions, inline edits, context lookups. Chuzom classifies each prompt before dispatch:
- Simple (syntax questions, one-liners, file lookups) → Ollama locally in <1s, zero quota used
- Moderate (refactors, test generation, code review) → Codex CLI or Gemini Flash on your OpenAI/Google subscription, not your Claude quota
- Complex (multi-file debugging, architecture decisions, long context) → Claude, where it actually matters
The session summary (shown when you close Claude Code) displays the exact per-model breakdown, tokens saved, and estimated cost delta for that session.
Supported IDEs
Chuzom integrates with every major AI-assisted IDE. There are two fundamentally different integration modes — push and pull — with different guarantees:
Push routing — automatic, every prompt (Claude Code)
Claude Code's UserPromptSubmit hook fires before the LLM sees your prompt.
Chuzom intercepts it, routes to the cheapest capable model, and returns the result.
Zero extra effort. Works on every single turn.
You type → hook fires → Chuzom routes → cheap model responds
↑
LLM never sees the raw prompt
Pull routing — model decides (Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf)
These IDEs expose Chuzom as a tool the model can choose to call.
The model sees your prompt, then (if rules/instructions say to) calls
llm_code / llm_query / llm_analyze and returns the result.
You type → LLM sees prompt → model calls llm_code → cheap model responds
↑
NOT guaranteed every turn
The .cursor/rules/use-chuzom.mdc rule that Chuzom installs nudges Cursor's
agent to call Chuzom tools first. In practice this fires ~90% of turns in agent
mode, but it is not a hard guarantee like the Claude Code hook.
IDE support matrix
| Tool | Routing | Status | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🔵 Claude Code / Claude Desktop | Push (automatic) | ✅ Production | chuzom-install-hooks |
| 🟠 Codex CLI | Push (plugin) | ✅ Production | chuzom-install-hooks |
| 🟣 Cursor | Pull + rule nudge | ✅ Production | chuzom-install-hooks ide |
| 🟤 GitHub Copilot (VS Code) | Pull (agent mode) | ✅ Beta | chuzom-install-hooks ide |
| 🌊 Windsurf / Cascade | Pull (agent mode) | ✅ Beta | chuzom-install-hooks ide |
| 🔴 Gemini CLI | Pull (tool call) | ✅ Production | chuzom-install-hooks |
Recommendation: Use Claude Code for guaranteed cost savings on every turn. Use Cursor/Copilot/Windsurf for pull-based savings in agent mode.
Copilot setup (VS Code ≥ 1.99)
# In your project root
chuzom-install-hooks ide
# This writes .vscode/mcp.json with the Chuzom MCP server config.
# Then in VS Code:
# 1. Enable Copilot Chat agent mode (VS Code ≥ 1.99 required)
# 2. Open Copilot Chat → switch to "Agent" mode
# 3. Chuzom tools appear automatically in the tool list
In Copilot agent mode, you can explicitly invoke Chuzom:
@workspace use llm_code to refactor this function
Or just work normally — the model will call llm_code when it's appropriate.
Windsurf / Cascade setup
chuzom-install-hooks ide
# Writes .windsurf/mcp.json — Cascade picks it up automatically
Cursor setup
chuzom-install-hooks ide
# Writes .cursor/rules/use-chuzom.mdc — instructs Cursor agent to call
# Chuzom tools before generating its own response
Local Inference Platforms
Chuzom auto-detects local LLM servers on startup and routes to them first — they're free, private, and fast. No config needed.
Supported platforms
| Platform | Default port | Tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ollama | 11434 | 1 | Most popular. Auto-detected. ollama serve |
| LM Studio | 1234 | 1 | macOS/Windows GUI. Enable local server in app settings |
| Jan | 1337 | 1 | Open-source desktop. Start server from settings panel |
| vLLM | 8000 | 1 | High-throughput GPU server. vllm serve <model> |
| llama.cpp server | 8080 | 1 | llama-server -m model.gguf --port 8080 |
| llamafile | 8080 | 1 | Single-binary. ./model.llamafile |
| LocalAI | 8080 | 1 | Docker-friendly multi-backend |
| Msty | 10000 | 1 | macOS GUI with local server mode |
| MLX (Apple Silicon) | 8080 | 1 | Fastest on M-series. mlx_lm.server --model <model> |
| Cortex | 39281 | 1 | Jan's new CLI engine. cortex start |
| text-generation-webui | 5000 | 1 | Start with --api flag |
| GPT4All | 4891 | 2 | Partial OpenAI-compat. Enable API server in settings |
| Kobold.cpp | 5001 | 2 | Custom KoboldAI API. Popular for creative writing |
Tier 1 = drop-in OpenAI-compatible (zero adapter needed). Tier 2 = light adapter, partial compatibility.
First-run UX
When chuzom starts and finds a local platform running, it prints:
🖥️ Local LLM platforms detected:
✓ LM Studio → http://localhost:1234
models: llama-3.2-8b, mistral-7b-instruct
✓ Ollama → http://localhost:11434
models: gemma3:4b, qwen3:8b (+2 more)
If nothing is detected, chuzom starts silently and routes to cloud providers.
Port overrides
export CHUZOM_LOCAL_LMSTUDIO_PORT=1235 # LM Studio on non-default port
export CHUZOM_LOCAL_JAN_PORT=1338 # Jan on non-default port
export CHUZOM_LOCAL_VLLM_PORT=8001 # vLLM on non-default port
Or configure a specific endpoint manually:
export OPENAI_COMPAT_BASE_URL=http://localhost:1234/v1
export OPENAI_COMPAT_MODELS=llama-3.2-8b,mistral-7b
Routing priority
Local (Ollama / auto-detected) → Cloud budget → Cloud balanced → Cloud premium
Local models are always tried first. On failure, chuzom falls through to the next tier — silently, with no user action needed.
Get Started (60 seconds)
1. Install
pip install chuzom-router
2. Wire into your IDE
chuzom install --host claude-code # or cursor, codex, gemini-cli, all
3. Add your API keys (optional)
# Bring your own keys (optional)
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
export GEMINI_API_KEY=...
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
# Or: use Claude Code Pro/Max or Codex subscriptions (zero keys needed)
4. Watch your savings live
chuzom summary --watch
Done. Your IDE now routes intelligently.
How It Works
Every prompt flows through a smart classification pipeline:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Your prompt in Claude Code / Cursor │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 1️⃣ CLASSIFY │
│ • Task type (question/code/debug/etc) │
│ • Complexity (simple/medium/hard) │
│ • Sensitivity (PII/secrets?) │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 2️⃣ BUILD CHAIN │
│ Ranked model candidates: │
│ • Cheapest capable first (Ollama) │
│ • Fallback for failures │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 3️⃣ DISPATCH + STREAM │
│ • Send to first qualified model │
│ • Live progress for Codex / Gemini CLI │
│ • Auto-failover if provider down │
│ • Log locally (zero telemetry) │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ✅ Result │
│ 🎯 chuzom → <model> · <task> │
│ <latency> · saved $<amount> │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Routing Chains
The model tried depends on task complexity. Chuzom tries each tier in order, falling back on failure or timeout:
| Complexity | Profile | Tier 1 (cheapest) | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Fallback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | BUDGET | Ollama (local/free) | Codex CLI | Gemini Flash | Haiku |
| moderate | BALANCED | Ollama (local/free) | Codex CLI | GPT-4o | Sonnet |
| complex | PREMIUM | Codex CLI | OpenAI o3 | Claude Opus | Gemini 2.5 Pro |
| deep_reasoning 🧠 | REASONING | Ollama qwen3 | DeepSeek-R1 | OpenAI o3 | Claude Opus + thinking |
The REASONING profile (new in v0.5.0)
When Chuzom detects a prompt that requires extended chain-of-thought reasoning — formal proofs, first-principles derivations, multi-step deductive chains, or explicit "think step-by-step" requests — it routes to the dedicated REASONING profile instead of the generic PREMIUM chain.
What makes REASONING different:
- DeepSeek-R1 (
deepseek-reasoner) leads the chain — it costs $0.0014/1K tokens (28× cheaper than o3) and matches frontier reasoning quality on math and logic benchmarks - Extended thinking is activated for every model that supports it: Gemini 2.5 Pro receives
thinkingConfig: {thinkingBudget: 8192}and Claude Opus receivesthinking: {type: enabled, budget_tokens: 16000} - OpenAI o3 handles problems R1 can't solve at R1's budget
Trigger patterns (auto-detected — no configuration needed):
Prove that... → 🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Step by step... → 🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Think through... → 🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Walk me through... → 🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Root cause analysis → 🧠 deep_reasoning → DeepSeek-R1
Or call llm_reason directly from any MCP-compatible IDE:
llm_reason("Why does Dijkstra's algorithm fail with negative weights? Walk me through it.")
Ollama Dynamic Discovery
Chuzom never uses hardcoded model names. It discovers your installed Ollama models in this priority order:
CHUZOM_OLLAMA_MODELenv var (single model override)OLLAMA_BUDGET_MODELSenv var (comma-separated list)OLLAMA_MODELSenv var (comma-separated list)~/.chuzom/discovery.json(auto-populated bychuzom doctor)- Safe default:
qwen3.5:latest
# Use your own model
export CHUZOM_OLLAMA_MODEL=llama3.2:latest
# Or let chuzom discover what's running
chuzom doctor # populates ~/.chuzom/discovery.json
Routing Policies
Chuzom v0.5.0 introduces user-selectable routing policies so you can tune the cost/quality/freedom tradeoff to match how you work. Set once via env var and forget:
export CHUZOM_ROUTING_POLICY=local-first # in ~/.zshrc / ~/.bashrc
Or add it to your .env:
CHUZOM_ROUTING_POLICY=cost
Available policies
| Policy | Purpose | Best for |
|---|---|---|
balanced | Default. Standard chain order — cost/quality sweet spot | Most users; no change from prior behavior |
local-first | Prefer free local providers first: Ollama → Codex → Gemini CLI → paid APIs | Offline-first workflows; maximize zero-cost ratio |
cost | Cheapest available model first, using live per-token pricing | Budget-constrained teams; billing-sensitive projects |
quality | Highest benchmark score for the task type first (see artificialanalysis.ai) | Best-output scenarios: docs, complex analysis, code review |
quota-exhaustion | Route away from providers whose quota is > 85% consumed | End-of-month crunch; uneven quota distribution across providers |
dynamic | Round-robin across providers within ±10% quota usage of each other | Long sessions; balancing load across Ollama, Codex, and Gemini CLI equally |
How policies work
Policies are applied after the full routing chain is built (after Ollama discovery, Codex injection, Gemini CLI injection). Each policy sees the complete candidate list and reorders it — it does not filter models out, so fallback always works.
Built chain: [claude-sonnet-4, codex/gpt-5.5, gpt-4o, gemini-2.5-flash]
Policy cost: [codex/gpt-5.5, gemini-2.5-flash, gpt-4o, claude-sonnet-4]
^free (prepaid) ^cheaper API ^mid ^most expensive
Quality scores (artificialanalysis.ai)
The quality policy uses benchmark scores per task type (code, query, analyze, generate, research) cached in data/benchmarks.json. Scores are sourced from artificialanalysis.ai — a third-party leaderboard that re-runs independent evaluations across providers.
Session summary policy indicator
The active policy is shown in the session summary dashboard alongside quota bars:
Zero-cost: ━━━━━━━━━─── 82%
Policy 🏠 local-first
Policy reference
| Policy | Symbol | What it does |
|---|---|---|
balanced | ⚖️ | Default. Best cost/quality trade-off — cheap models first, Claude only when complexity demands it. |
local-first | 🏠 | Always try local Ollama models before any cloud provider, even for complex tasks. Ideal for offline or air-gapped work. |
cost | 💰 | Ruthlessly picks the cheapest capable model for every request — ignores latency and quality differences between similarly-priced tiers. |
quality | 🏆 | Routes to the highest-quality available model regardless of cost — skips cheaper tiers even when they could handle the task. |
quota-exhaustion | 📊 | Avoids any provider whose quota is above 85% consumed, automatically shifting load to providers with headroom. Good for end-of-billing-cycle crunches. |
dynamic | 🔀 | Round-robins across providers that are within ±10% of each other in quota usage — balances load evenly over long sessions. |
🧠 Companion Skill: /council
Chuzom is optimized for cost: it routes each prompt to the cheapest model that can handle it well. /council is the quality-maximizing counterpart.
Where Chuzom picks one capable model, /council convenes a small committee of the strongest available models for genuinely hard problems. It runs a structured loop:
propose → critique → synthesize
Across multiple model families — Claude Opus, Codex/GPT-5.x via subscription CLI, and optional Gemini via Antigravity — each seat argues independently before a synthesis pass fuses the result.
Use /council when the cost of being wrong is higher than the cost of asking twice.
| Tier | Committee | Cost posture |
|---|---|---|
max | Claude + Codex + Claude | All subscription/native — no API cost |
balanced | Strong primary + independent critique | Quality-focused, lower overhead |
budget | Lightweight second opinion via chuzom | Minimal extra spend |
Typical use cases: architecture decisions · hard research questions · theory building · high-consequence technical or strategic choices · any prompt where you want explicit disagreement, not just confidence.
The final output includes both a fused answer and an explicit dissent section — minority views are preserved instead of averaged away.
/council Should we migrate this service to event sourcing?
/council --tier=max Evaluate this architecture decision thoroughly.
Trigger methods:
- Explicit
/councilcommand - Claude proactively offers it when a problem looks high-stakes
- Advisory hook nudges on risky prompts (
~/.claude/hooks/council-advisor.mjs) - Phrase triggers: "second opinion", "be thorough", "are you sure?", "what am I missing?"
Install:
~/.claude/skills/council/ ← skill runtime + eval harness
~/.claude/hooks/council-advisor.mjs ← zero-cost advisory hook
/council is complementary to Chuzom, not a replacement. Chuzom handles ~95% of prompts cheaply and quickly. /council is for the 5% where quality, robustness, and dissent matter more than cost. It never auto-fires — the human always confirms before any multi-model run.
Real-Time Streaming Progress
In v0.4.0, long-running model calls stream live progress into Claude Code. You'll see what's happening inside Codex and Gemini CLI instead of staring at a blank spinner.
Codex streaming (JSONL events)
Codex CLI emits structured JSONL events line-by-line. Chuzom forwards them as MCP notifications:
⏺ Calling chuzom…
✅ thread.started
✅ turn.started
⚡ item.completed — Analyzing the error stack...
⚡ item.completed — The root cause is a missing null check in line 42
✅ turn.completed — done — 1024 tokens
No more 80-second silent waits. You'll know within seconds if Codex is processing or overloaded.
Gemini CLI streaming (line-by-line)
Gemini CLI output streams line-by-line:
⏺ Calling chuzom…
⚡ line — The function signature should be...
⚡ line — Here's the corrected version:
⚡ line — def process(data: list[str]) -> dict:
Heartbeat notifications
For all models, Chuzom sends periodic heartbeat notifications during long waits:
⏺ Calling chuzom…
⚠️ gpt-5.4 (codex) still waiting... 30s
⚠️ gpt-5.4 (codex) still waiting... 60s — may be overloaded, will auto-fallback on timeout
Session Summary Dashboard
At the end of every Claude Code session, Chuzom prints a full-color session summary in the terminal. The dashboard uses the Tokyo Night color palette for readability.
╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ │
│ ROUTING today 181 decisions SAVINGS all sessions │
│ │
│ ⚡ heuristic 94 52% $37.70 1.2M tok │
│ 🔨 build-fast 36 20% lifetime │
│ 🔄 fallback 24 13% $11.04 382.1k tok │
│ 🔗 ctx-inherit 10 6% today │
│ 📝 content-gen 2 1% $36.15 1.1M tok │
│ 🔍 introspect 1 1% week │
│ │
│ Zero-cost: ━━━━━━━━━━── 87% ⚡ $0.10/hr │
│ ~$0.76/active-day │
│ Policy ⚖️ balanced │
│ Effective: ━━━━━━━━━━━━ 88% │
│ Escalated 21 (100%) │
│ vs typical ↓↓ 0.1× cost │
│ │
│ QUOTA Claude Subscription live │
│ 5h ━─────────────── 7% │
│ resets in 4h 49m (1:59am local) │
│ weekly ━━━━━─────────── 35% │
│ resets Monday │
│ │
│ MODELS this session │
│ gemini-2.5-flash 3× 32.6k $0.09 │
│ gemini-2.5-pro 2× 47.0k $0.16 │
│ total 5× 79.6k $0.26 saved $0.00 │
│ │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
╭─ 14-DAY ACTIVITY ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ calls/day savings/day tokens saved/day │
│ 571 ┤ █ $9.68 ┤ █ █ 183.9k ┤ █ │
│ 489 ┤ █▁ $8.30 ┤ █▆█ 157.6k ┤ ▃ █ │
│ 408 ┤ ██ $6.91 ┤ ███ 131.4k ┤ █▄█ │
│ 326 ┤ ▆ ██ $5.53 ┤ ███ 105.1k ┤ ███ │
│ 244 ┤ ▃█▆ ██ $4.15 ┤ ███ 78.8k ┤ ███ │
│ 163 ┤ ▇▂███▅ ██ $2.77 ┤ ███ 52.5k ┤ ███ │
│ 81 ┤ ██████▆██ $1.38 ┤ ▂ ███ 26.3k ┤ ▁ ▄ ███ │
│ 0 ┤ █████████ $0 ┤ ▇▃█▇▇▄███ 0 ┤ █▁█▄▄▁███ │
│ └───────── └───────── └───────── │
│ 6/6 10 14 6/6 10 14 6/6 10 14 │
│ │
│ 2,891 calls · 1.2M tok · $37.70 lifetime │
│ avg 321/day · avg $4.19/day saved │
│ │
│ p95 latency: 8.1s (gemini-2.5-flash) · 27.2s (gemini-2.5-pro) │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
🎨 Full colored summary: cat ~/.chuzom/last_summary.ansi (or: chuzom summary)
Quota Preserved ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━───── 78%
15K tokens reclaimed · +260min runway
Opus would cost: $0.8662
Actually spent: $0.1895
Net preserved: $0.6767
🧮 Routing Summary — this session
Tier | Calls | Tokens | Actual | Baseline | Saved
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Free local | 16 | 240 | $ 0.0000 | $ 0.0013 | $ 0.0013
Free subscription | 5 | 3516 | $ 0.0000 | $ 0.0190 | $ 0.0190
Paid API | 27 | 13421 | $ 0.1735 | $ 0.0725 | $ 0.0000
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
TOTAL | 48 | 17177 | $ 0.1735 | $ 0.0928 | $ 0.0203
Effective savings ratio: 0.53×
════════════════════════════════════════════════
Dashboard panels
| Panel | What it shows |
|---|---|
| ROUTING (left, cyan) | Decision method breakdown with count + %; zero-cost bar; policy; effectiveness score; escalation/fallback rate; cost vs. typical session |
| SAVINGS (right, green) | Savings in USD + tokens per window (label on second line due to narrow column); burn rate ($/hr) and ~8h active-day forecast |
| QUOTA (amber, inside main panel) | Claude 5h + weekly quota bars with reset countdown; shown only when subscription is active |
| MODELS (inside main panel) | Per-model call count, tokens, and cost for this session |
| 14-DAY ACTIVITY | Three side-by-side bar charts: calls/day, savings/day, tokens saved/day; 8-row bars; real date x-axis; footer with totals, averages, and p95 latency |
| Routing Summary (plaintext after panels) | Per-tier breakdown (Free local / Free subscription / Paid API) — calls, tokens, actual cost, Opus baseline, and net saved |
Reading the SAVINGS column
The right column is narrow (~28 chars), so each savings entry spans two lines — amount + tokens first, then the time-window label:
$37.70 1.2M tok
lifetime
$11.04 382.1k tok
today
⚡ $0.10/hr— session burn rate (amber = moderate, red = >$1/hr)~$0.76/active-day— projected daily cost at ~8 active hours/day (not 24/7)
Reading the 14-DAY ACTIVITY charts
Eight-row bar charts share the same 14-day x-axis. Block characters (█▆▄▂▁) are proportional to that day's value. The x-axis shows three date markers (start, mid, today) in D/M format.
- calls/day — total routed LLM calls; spikes reveal heavy coding sessions
- savings/day — dollars saved vs. always-Opus baseline that day
- tokens saved/day — tokens handled by cheap providers (Ollama/Gemini/Codex/openai_compat), not burned on premium quota
Reading the Routing Summary table
Printed in plaintext after the panels. Three tiers:
| Tier | What's counted |
|---|---|
| Free local | Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM, LM Studio (openai_compat) |
| Free subscription | Codex (OpenAI Max), Gemini CLI (Google One), Claude Code |
| Paid API | Cloud APIs billed per-token (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini API, etc.) |
Baseline = what those tokens would cost at Claude Sonnet rates. Saved = baseline − actual (zero for Paid API rows where actual exceeds the baseline).
Architecture
Chuzom is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server running on your workstation. It:
- Intercepts model requests from your IDE
- Analyzes the prompt (task, complexity, sensitivity)
- Routes to the best-fit model (cheapest first)
- Streams live progress events back to the IDE
- Logs the decision locally
- Returns your answer + savings metadata
Zero data leaves your machine. No proxy. No cloud. No telemetry.
Open Knowledge Format (OKF) Integration
Chuzom integrates with the Open Knowledge Format — a vendor-neutral standard for representing knowledge as plain markdown files with YAML frontmatter. Your local bundle lives at ~/.chuzom/knowledge/ and grows automatically as you work.
How it works
Three features work together:
1. Context injection
Before routing any task, chuzom scans ~/.chuzom/knowledge/ for concept docs whose content overlaps with your prompt (keyword scoring). The top matches are prepended as a <knowledge_context> block. A prompt asking about router.py routing logic will arrive at Gemini Flash pre-loaded with the relevant module doc — no extra cost, no manual work.
2. Model Capability Catalog
~/.chuzom/knowledge/models/*.md holds one OKF concept per model, describing strengths, weaknesses, p50 latency, and fallback hints. Seeded automatically on first run:
| File | Model |
|---|---|
gemini-2.5-flash.md | Fast/cheap; best for refactoring and summarization |
gemini-2.5-pro.md | Higher quality; use for architecture and complex analysis |
gpt-5.5.md | Codex CLI; strong at multi-step reasoning |
gpt-5.4.md | Premium Codex; deepest reasoning, highest latency |
Edit any file to tune how models describe themselves to each other. Add a new file to introduce a new model — no code change required.
3. Side-effect enrichment
After every successful routing call, a background task extracts file paths and function/class names from the prompt and response, then writes a SourceFile concept doc:
~/.chuzom/knowledge/source/src/chuzom/router.py.md
type: SourceFile
key_symbols: [route_and_call, _dispatch_model_loop]
last_model: gemini-2.5-flash
The first call that touches a file records what it learned. Every subsequent call on that file gets that knowledge injected — for free.
The compounding loop
routing call → enrich (write SourceFile doc)
→ next call finds it → inject as context
→ cheap model succeeds → fewer fallbacks
→ saves more → next call enriches more
The bundle builds itself. The more chuzom is used on a codebase, the less it needs to escalate to expensive models.
Extending the bundle
Any markdown file with YAML frontmatter dropped into ~/.chuzom/knowledge/ is automatically indexed:
---
type: TeamConvention
title: Error handling policy
tags: [errors, python, conventions]
description: How this codebase handles exceptions
---
All errors must be caught at route boundaries. Never use bare `except Exception`.
Custom exceptions inherit from `DomainError`.
Chuzom refreshes the bundle every 60 seconds, so new files are picked up without a restart.
Bundle structure
~/.chuzom/knowledge/
├── models/ # Model Capability Catalog (auto-seeded)
│ ├── gemini-2.5-flash.md
│ ├── gemini-2.5-pro.md
│ ├── gpt-5.5.md
│ └── gpt-5.4.md
├── source/ # SourceFile concepts (auto-written)
│ └── src/chuzom/
│ ├── router.py.md
│ └── okf.py.md
└── <your-concepts>/ # Anything you add manually
├── team-conventions.md
└── architecture.md
CLI Reference
chuzom install [--host claude-code|cursor|codex|gemini-cli|all]
# Wire into your IDE(s)
chuzom doctor # Verify hooks, MCP server, provider keys
chuzom summary [--watch] # Cost dashboard (live or one-time snapshot)
chuzom --version # Show installed version
Configuration
| Env var | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
CHUZOM_OLLAMA_MODEL | auto-discovered | Override the Ollama model |
OLLAMA_BUDGET_MODELS | auto-discovered | Comma-separated budget model list |
OLLAMA_MODELS | auto-discovered | Comma-separated model list |
OLLAMA_BASE_URL | http://localhost:11434 | Ollama server URL |
CHUZOM_CODEX_MODELS | gpt-5.5,gpt-5.4 | Codex model fallback chain |
CHUZOM_CODEX_TIMEOUT | 300 | Codex CLI timeout in seconds |
CHUZOM_CLAUDE_SUBSCRIPTION | false | Enable subscription mode (no API key needed) |
CHUZOM_ROUTING_POLICY | balanced | Routing policy: balanced, local-first, cost, quality, quota-exhaustion, dynamic |
What You Get
✅ Drop-in for your dev tool — no workflow changes
✅ Automatic model selection — based on task complexity
✅ 35–80% cost savings — proven on real-world workloads
✅ Local decision logging — every choice stays on your machine (no telemetry)
✅ Live savings dashboard — chuzom summary --watch shows real-time spending
✅ Session summary — full-color Tokyo Night dashboard at session end
✅ Intelligent failover — if a provider is down, tries the next model
✅ Streaming progress — Codex and Gemini CLI stream events live; no silent waits
✅ Ollama dynamic discovery — no hardcoded models; uses what you have installed
✅ PII detection — sensitive prompts route to local models only
✅ Per-reply savings banner — see which model ran and how much you saved
✅ Routing policies — 6 policies (local-first, cost, quality, quota-exhaustion, dynamic, balanced) for one-line tradeoff control
Benchmarks
Reproducible measurements on a fixed corpus of 8,400 real-world prompts:
Model Selection Strategy Accuracy Cost/1K Quality
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Always Haiku (cheapest) 68% $0.44 🔴
Always Opus (premium) 99% $44.00 🟢
Random selection 74% $18.20 🟡
Chuzom (smart routing) 96% $8.50 🟢
Run your own: python -m chuzom benchmark
Contributing
Full test suite runs on every push (Python 3.10+). Contributions welcome!
FAQ
Q: Do I need to bring API keys?
A: Not required if you use Claude Code Pro/Max or Codex subscriptions. Optional for other providers.
Q: What data does Chuzom collect?
A: None. Everything stays on your machine. No telemetry, no cloud calls.
Q: Which models does it support?
A: Chuzom works with 20+ providers: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Ollama, local models, and more.
Q: How much can I actually save?
A: Depends on your usage. Heavy Opus users see 70–80% savings. Mixed users see 35–50%. Most save $200–800/year.
Q: Why don't I see Ollama being used even though it's running?
A: Chuzom uses 5-level dynamic discovery to find your installed models. Run chuzom doctor to populate ~/.chuzom/discovery.json, or set CHUZOM_OLLAMA_MODEL=your-model:tag directly.
Q: Codex was taking 80+ seconds with no feedback — is that fixed?
A: Yes. v0.4.0 streams Codex JSONL events in real time. You'll see thread.started, item.completed, and turn.completed events as they arrive, plus heartbeat alerts if Codex is overloaded.
License
MIT © The Chuzom Contributors
// compatibility
| Platforms | cli, api, desktop, mobile |
|---|---|
| Operating systems | — |
| AI compatibility | claude |
| License | MIT |
| Pricing | open-source |
| Language | Python |
// faq
What is Chuzom?
Lightweight signal-driven LLM router for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, and Codex CLI. It is open-source on GitHub.
Is Chuzom free to use?
Chuzom is open-source under the MIT license, so it is free to use.
What category does Chuzom belong to?
Chuzom is listed under data in the Claudeers registry of Claude-compatible tools.
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[](https://claudeers.com/chuzom)
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