OrcaRouter
Use OrcaRouter models with Docker Agent.
Overview
OrcaRouter provides access to models from many providers through an OpenAI-compatible API. Docker Agent includes built-in support for OrcaRouter as an alias provider.
Setup
-
Get an API key from OrcaRouter
-
Set the environment variable:
$ export ORCAROUTER_API_KEY=your-api-key
Usage
Inline Syntax
Set the provider and model in the agent definition:
agents:
root:
model: orcarouter/orcarouter/auto
description: Assistant using OrcaRouter
instruction: You are a helpful assistant.
orcarouter/auto is OrcaRouter's adaptive router. You can also reference a model served by the gateway with its upstream provider prefix, such as orcarouter/anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5 or orcarouter/deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro. Docker Agent splits only the first slash, so the full upstream model ID is preserved.
Named Model
For more control over parameters:
models:
orca_router:
provider: orcarouter
model: orcarouter/auto
temperature: 0.7
max_tokens: 8192
agents:
root:
model: orca_router
description: Assistant using OrcaRouter
instruction: You are a helpful assistant.
Pricing and Model Metadata
Docker Agent fetches OrcaRouter model metadata from models.dev, including pricing per 1M input/output tokens, cache pricing when available, context limits, output limits, and modalities. This powers cost tracking and the model picker in the same way as other first-class providers.
If models.dev is unavailable, Docker Agent falls back to its embedded catalog snapshot.
How It Works
OrcaRouter is implemented as a built-in alias in Docker Agent:
- API Type: OpenAI-compatible (
openai) - Base URL:
https://api.orcarouter.ai/v1 - Token Variable:
ORCAROUTER_API_KEY
Example: Code Assistant
agents:
coder:
model: orcarouter/orcarouter/auto
description: Code assistant using OrcaRouter
instruction: |
You are an expert programmer.
Write clean, maintainable code.
Explain trade-offs when helpful.
toolsets:
- type: filesystem
- type: shell
- type: think