OpenRouter API Setup

OpenRouter API Configuration

Udility Diffuser leverages the OpenRouter API to access Meta Llama-3.5 models for generating SVG-based illustrations. You must provide a valid API key for the library to authenticate requests.

1. Obtain an API Key

To get your API key:

1. Visit OpenRouter.ai.
2. Create an account or sign in.
3. Navigate to the Keys section in your dashboard.
4. Create a new key and copy it.

Note: OpenRouter provides access to various models. Udility Diffuser is optimized to work with Llama-3.5 variants, including free versions like Nous Capybara.

2. Configure Your Environment

The library expects the API key to be stored in an environment variable named OPENROUTER_API_KEY. You can set this up in two ways:

Option A: Within your Python script (Recommended for Notebooks/Colab)

Set the variable at the start of your script before importing the diffuser module.

import os

# Set your OpenRouter API key
os.environ['OPENROUTER_API_KEY'] = 'your-api-key-here'

from Udility import diffuser

Option B: Via Terminal (Persistent across sessions)

If you are working in a local development environment, you can set the environment variable globally.

For Linux/macOS:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY='your-api-key-here'

For Windows (Command Prompt):

setx OPENROUTER_API_KEY "your-api-key-here"

3. Verification

Once the key is set, the library will automatically initialize the OpenAI client pointing to the OpenRouter base URL (https://openrouter.ai/api/v1).

If the key is missing, the library will raise an EnvironmentError when you attempt to generate an image:

# Error triggered if key is not found:
# EnvironmentError: The OpenRouter API key is not set. Please set it as an environment variable.

Security Best Practices

• Do not hardcode keys: Avoid committing scripts containing your raw API key to public version control systems like GitHub.
• Use .env files: For local projects, consider using a .env file and the python-dotenv package to manage your secrets securely.