Use nRouter with LangChain in Python and JavaScript. Integrate smart routing, automatic retries, guardrails, and cost tracking into your LangChain pipelines.

LangChain's ChatOpenAI works directly with nRouter. Set base_url to https://api.nrouter.ai/v1 — guardrails, caching, and rate-limits auto-apply from your org config. Every chain, agent, and RAG pipeline is protected.

Installation

pip install langchain-openai nrouter-sdk

Setup

import os
from langchain_openai import ChatOpenAI

llm = ChatOpenAI(
    model="claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929",
    api_key=os.environ["NROUTER_API_KEY"],
    base_url="https://api.nrouter.ai/v1",
)

response = llm.invoke("Explain quantum computing in one sentence.")
print(response.content)

Per-Request Overrides

Pass nrouter_* fields via model_kwargs:

llm = ChatOpenAI(
    model="gpt-5.5",
    api_key=os.environ["NROUTER_API_KEY"],
    base_url="https://api.nrouter.ai/v1",
    model_kwargs={
        "nrouter_prompt_template_id": "your-summarizer-template-id",
        "nrouter_prompt_variables": {"language": "Spanish", "max_length": "100"},
        "nrouter_cache": False,
    },
)

Guardrails are not passed here. You assign them in the dashboard at key, team, or organization scope — the narrowest scope that mentions a guardrail wins — and they run automatically on every request that scope covers.

Chains

Standard LangChain composition — guardrails protect every step:

from langchain_core.prompts import ChatPromptTemplate
from langchain_core.output_parsers import StrOutputParser

prompt = ChatPromptTemplate.from_messages([
    ("system", "You are a {role}. Be concise."),
    ("user", "{input}"),
])

chain = prompt | llm | StrOutputParser()
result = chain.invoke({"role": "technical writer", "input": "Explain API gateways"})

RAG

Use OpenAIEmbeddings against the same gateway:

from langchain_openai import OpenAIEmbeddings
from langchain_community.vectorstores import FAISS

embeddings = OpenAIEmbeddings(
    model="text-embedding-3-small",
    api_key=os.environ["NROUTER_API_KEY"],
    base_url="https://api.nrouter.ai/v1",
)
vectorstore = FAISS.from_texts(["..."], embeddings)

The RAG query is protected by guardrails — prompt injection is blocked before retrieval starts.

Error Handling

from nroutersdk import nRouterGuardrailBlockedError

try:
    response = llm.invoke("My SSN is 123-45-6789, process refund")
except nRouterGuardrailBlockedError as e:
    print(f"Guardrail blocked: {e}")

Next Steps

LlamaIndex — Same pattern for index-based RAG
Vercel AI — Equivalent for TypeScript / Next.js
Python SDK — Without LangChain

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