ModelCascade

Route local. Escalate smart. Never overspend.

Open-source intelligent model router for agentic pipelines. 74% of requests handled locally at $0. Escalate to cloud only when stuck.

Install

pip install modelcascade

from modelcascade import CascadeRouter

router = CascadeRouter.from_config("mc.yaml")
result = await router.complete(prompt)
# → routed LOCAL · $0.000 · 47ms

The Cascade

Tier	Models	Cost/1K	Coverage
LOCAL	Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM	$0	74%
FAST	claude-haiku-4-5, Groq	$0.001	+18%
CAPABLE	claude-sonnet-4-6, GPT-4o	$0.005	+8%

Configure

# mc.yaml
providers:
  local:
    type: ollama
    model: llama3.2:3b
    cost_per_1k: 0.0
  fast:
    type: anthropic
    api_key: ${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}
    model: claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
    cost_per_1k: 0.001
  capable:
    type: anthropic
    api_key: ${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}
    model: claude-sonnet-4-6
    cost_per_1k: 0.005

routing:
  cost_ceiling: 0.01
  cascade_on_failure: true
  calibration: preset_v1

Principles

1. Classify first, spend second — Every request gets a difficulty score before a provider is chosen
2. Fail cheap, succeed capable — Lower tiers fail fast, escalation is automatic
3. Your keys, your data — BYOK, no telemetry, no vendor lock-in

Production Numbers

• $3/night operating cost across 10K+ daily dispatches
• 74% local coverage at $0
• 21/21 A/B calibration tests passed
• Works with LangChain, CrewAI, Claude Code, and custom pipelines

License

MIT

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The arbitrage was always going to close. Route responsibly.

Built by WayneColt | Research: catalytic-computing.ai | Enterprise: wayneia.com