JEV

One endpoint for every model. One CLI for every MCP tool. A zero-dependency model router and MCP toolkit for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor.

• One key, one model name, jev-auto, works the same way in every client.
• JEV picks a model for each request: cheap and fast for "rename this", frontier models for "debug this race condition".
• Build, test, deploy and install MCP servers in four commands.
• Website: https://jev-site.jevrouter.workers.dev · npm: jevrouter · MCP Registry: io.github.mdimamhosen/jev-guide
• About 1,400 lines of plain JavaScript with no dependencies. It starts in roughly 30 ms and runs on Node, Bun, Deno and Cloudflare Workers (free).

Claude Code ──/v1/messages──┐                      ┌── Anthropic · DeepSeek
Codex ───────/v1/responses──┼──▶  JEV  ──route──▶  ├── OpenAI
Cursor ──/v1/chat/completions┘   (jev-auto)        ├── Gemini · Groq · Cerebras · OpenRouter · Mistral
                                                   └── Ollama (local)

60-second setup

Requires Node 20.12 or newer.

npm install -g jevrouter                    # installs the `jev` command (or: npx jevrouter <command>)

echo "GEMINI_API_KEY=..." >> ~/.jev/.env    # any provider key works; Gemini and Groq have free tiers
jev serve                                   # http://127.0.0.1:4000
jev setup                                   # configures Claude Code, Codex and Cursor (with backups)

Then use your tools as usual:

claude      # Claude Code now runs through JEV
codex       # so does Codex

jev doctor checks every endpoint, streaming, tool calls and client config. jev uninstall-config puts everything back exactly as it was.

Free cloud deploy (Cloudflare Workers, about 2 minutes)

The same code runs on Cloudflare's free plan (100k requests a day, no cold starts). Cursor needs this, because it calls custom endpoints from Cursor's servers rather than from your machine.

npx wrangler login
jev deploy                                  # deploys and sets a generated JEV_API_KEY
npx wrangler secret put GEMINI_API_KEY      # add each provider key as a secret
jev setup --url https://jev.<you>.workers.dev --key <your JEV key>

In the cloud, JEV refuses every request until JEV_API_KEY is set, so it never runs as an open proxy.

Other free options

Free tiers are rate-limited and change often, so check each provider's pricing page.

Clients

* Cursor sends custom-key traffic only for chat and agent models. Tab and other Cursor-owned features always use Cursor's own infrastructure.

Claude Code

jev setup adds this to the env block of ~/.claude/settings.json:

"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "http://127.0.0.1:4000",
"ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "<JEV key>",
"ANTHROPIC_MODEL": "jev-auto",
"ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL": "jev-auto",
"ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL": "jev-smart",
"ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "jev-fast"

Claude Code shows a one-time notice that jev-auto isn't in its model catalog. That's expected. Because JEV supplies the auth token, claude.ai connectors are switched off for that session.

Codex

jev setup adds marked blocks to ~/.codex/config.toml. Any existing top-level model is commented out, and the uninstall command restores it.

model = "jev-auto"
model_provider = "jev"

[model_providers.jev]
name = "JEV"
base_url = "http://127.0.0.1:4000/v1"
wire_api = "responses"

When you pass --key, it's stored as an http_headers Authorization line in this file, so keep the file private.

Cursor

Go to Settings → Models → API Keys:

• OpenAI API Key: your JEV key
• Override OpenAI Base URL: https://jev.<you>.workers.dev/v1
• Add a custom model named jev-auto

Anything else

Any OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible client works. Point it at the JEV URL and use jev-auto as the model.

Models and routing

How jev-auto decides. No extra LLM call is involved; routing takes microseconds.

1. Hard constraints. It keeps only models whose provider key is set and that have a big enough context window, plus vision or tool support if the request needs them.

2. Task class. Simple keyword and request-shape rules sort the request into a task class and a tier:

   Task	Tier	Example prompts
   simple_edit, explanation	1	rename, typo, explain, docstring
   debugging, tests, review, code_generation	2	fix, implement, review
   architecture, hard_debugging, security_review, refactor	3	race condition, migrate, vulnerability

3. Ranking. Candidates are sorted by closest tier, then by whether they speak the client's protocol natively (no translation, so faster), then by price.

4. Session stickiness. Tool-loop turns stay on the same model, which keeps behaviour consistent and provider caches warm. A new prompt is classified again.

5. Fallback. On 429, 5xx, a network error or a bad key, JEV tries the next candidate (up to 3 attempts).

6. Escalation. Two or more failed tool calls in recent turns bump the task one tier up.

Every response carries an x-jev-route header. jev why shows the recent decisions:

Client   claude-code
Task     hard_debugging (tier 3, alias jev-auto)
Model    anthropic/claude-opus-5-5
Reason   hard_debugging → tier 3
Status   200 in 1290 ms, est. input $0.0412

Fast path. When the chosen model speaks the client's protocol natively (Claude Code → Anthropic or DeepSeek, Codex → OpenAI, Cursor → any provider), JEV only rewrites model and the key, then streams the bytes straight through. Otherwise it translates between protocols, including streaming events and tool calls.

Providers

Put keys in ~/.jev/.env (local) or Worker secrets (cloud):

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY · OPENAI_API_KEY · GEMINI_API_KEY · GROQ_API_KEY · CEREBRAS_API_KEY · OPENROUTER_API_KEY · DEEPSEEK_API_KEY · MISTRAL_API_KEY · OLLAMA_BASE_URL (for example http://localhost:11434/v1)

jev models shows what's active.

Your own model list

Create ~/.jev/models.json locally, or set the JEV_MODELS secret in the cloud. Entries are merged by id:

[
  { "id": "qwen3-coder:30b", "provider": "ollama", "tier": 2, "ctx": 128000, "input": 0, "output": 0, "free": true },
  { "id": "gpt-5", "tier": 2 }
]

The fields are tier (1 to 3), ctx (context tokens), input/output ($ per million tokens, used for ranking), vision, tools and free.

MCP: create, test, deploy, install

jev mcp create weather -t rest-api   # or: jev mcp import openapi.json
cd weather
jev mcp dev                          # http://localhost:7337/mcp, reloads on save
jev mcp test .                       # protocol and tool checks
jev mcp lint .                       # tool quality and safety score
jev mcp deploy                       # free on Cloudflare Workers
jev mcp install weather https://weather.<you>.workers.dev/mcp

jev mcp install adds the server to every detected client at once:

Generated servers have zero dependencies and are stateless Streamable HTTP, running on Workers, Node, Bun and Deno. You edit one file:

import { serve } from './mcp.js'

export default serve({
  name: 'weather',
  tools: [{
    name: 'get_forecast',
    description: 'Gets the 3-day forecast for a city. Use when the user asks about upcoming weather.',
    inputSchema: { type: 'object', properties: { city: { type: 'string', description: 'City name' } }, required: ['city'] },
    annotations: { readOnlyHint: true },
    run: async ({ city }, env) => fetch(`https://api.example.com/forecast?q=${city}&key=${env.API_KEY}`).then(r => r.json()),
  }],
})

Resources (resources: [{ uri, name, read }]) and prompts (prompts: [{ name, description, get }]) are supported too.

OpenAPI import turns each operation into a tool, resolves $refs, and skips DELETE, admin, internal, debug and deprecated endpoints unless you pass --all.

jev mcp test runs initialize, lists tools, resources and prompts, validates the schemas, checks unknown-tool errors, and calls every read-only tool with sample arguments. It works against a local folder with no server running, or against any URL, including third-party MCP servers.

jev mcp lint checks for generic tool names, thin descriptions, undocumented parameters, destructive tools without destructiveHint, duplicate descriptions and secrets in the source. It classifies each tool as READ_ONLY, WRITE or DESTRUCTIVE.

Auth. Set the MCP_TOKEN secret to require Authorization: Bearer <token>, then install with --token <token>.

Publishing to the official MCP Registry. jev mcp publish validates server.json, logs in (reusing your gh login when present) and publishes with mcp-publisher.

Example: examples/jev-guide is live at https://jev-guide.jevrouter.workers.dev/mcp and listed in the official registry. It gives agents tools to route prompts, print client setup and install MCP servers:

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user jev-guide https://jev-guide.jevrouter.workers.dev/mcp

Privacy

• JEV never stores prompts or responses. It logs only routing metadata (client, task, model, latency, estimated cost) to ~/.jev/usage.jsonl locally, or to wrangler tail in the cloud.
• Provider keys stay in your env file or Worker secrets. JEV keys are compared in constant time.
• For local-only use, set only OLLAMA_BASE_URL and use jev-free.

CLI reference

jev serve [-p 4000] [--host 127.0.0.1]     jev mcp create <name> [-t blank|rest-api]
jev setup [--url URL] [--key KEY] [-y]     jev mcp import <openapi.json|yaml> [name] [--all]
jev uninstall-config                       jev mcp dev [dir] [-p 7337]
jev doctor [--url URL]                     jev mcp test <dir|url> [--token T] [--no-call]
jev models                                 jev mcp lint <dir|url>
jev why                                    jev mcp deploy [dir]
jev usage                                  jev mcp install <name> <url> [--claude --codex --cursor] [--token T]
jev deploy                                 jev mcp uninstall <name>
                                           jev mcp publish [dir]

Troubleshooting

Architecture

src/app.js                 fetch handler: auth, endpoints, fallback loop      (runs on Workers as-is)
src/router.js              inspect → classify → constraints → rank → sticky sessions
src/providers.js           provider table + default model catalogue
src/translate/*.js         Messages ⇄ Chat and Responses ⇄ Chat, including SSE streams
src/node.js                node:http bridge for `jev serve`
src/clients.js             reversible Claude Code / Codex / Cursor config
src/mcp/runtime.js         ~100-line MCP server, copied into generated projects
src/mcp/{create,openapi,check}.js   scaffold, OpenAPI import, test + lint
bin/jev.js                 CLI

Run the tests with npm test. They use the built-in node:test, so there's nothing to install.

Roadmap

Accounts and a hosted dashboard · encrypted BYOK vault · OAuth broker for MCP · a public MCP directory with trust scores · outcome-aware routing (cost per successful task) and a learned router · jev-bench · MCP composition and workflows · tunnels · Windows installer.

License

MIT