Plugins

OpenRouter plugins extend the capabilities of any model by injecting or mutating a request or response to add functionality like PDF processing, automatic JSON repair, and context compression. Unlike server tools (which the model can call 0-N times), plugins always run once when enabled. Plugins can be enabled per-request via the API or configured as defaults for all your API requests through the Plugins settings page. Plugins use the plugins array; server tools use the tools array. ZDR enforcement filters the model inference endpoint, not plugin backends, with one exception: the Web Search plugin rejects the Firecrawl engine when ZDR is enforced in your account privacy settings or a guardrail. On In-Region Routing endpoints, a plugin engine that is not resident in the region returns an error. See Privacy and regional availability.

Available Plugins

OpenRouter currently supports the following plugins:

Plugin	Description	Docs
Web Search (deprecated)	Augment LLM responses with real-time web search results. Use the `openrouter:web_search` server tool instead.	Web Search
PDF Inputs	Parse and extract content from uploaded PDF files	PDF Inputs
Response Healing	Automatically fix malformed JSON responses from LLMs	Response Healing
Pareto Router	Set a default coding quality tier for the Pareto code router	Pareto Router
Context Compression	Compress prompts that exceed a model’s context window using middle-out truncation	Message Transforms

Enabling Plugins via API

Plugins are enabled by adding a plugins array to your chat completions request. Each plugin is identified by its id and can include optional configuration parameters.

Using Multiple Plugins

You can enable multiple plugins in a single request:

{
  "model": "openai/gpt-5.2",
  "messages": [...],
  "plugins": [
    { "id": "web", "max_results": 3 },
    { "id": "response-healing" }
  ],
  "response_format": {
    "type": "json_schema",
    "json_schema": { ... }
  }
}

Default Plugin Settings

Organization admins and individual users can configure default plugin settings that apply to all API requests. This is useful for:

Enabling plugins like web search or response healing by default across all requests
Setting consistent plugin configurations without modifying application code
Enforcing plugin settings that cannot be overridden by individual requests

To configure default plugin settings:

Navigate to Settings > Plugins
Toggle plugins on/off to enable them by default
Click the configure button to customize plugin settings
Optionally enable “Prevent overrides” to enforce settings across all requests

In organizations, the Plugins settings page is only accessible to admins.

When “Prevent overrides” is enabled for a plugin, individual API requests cannot disable or modify that plugin’s configuration. This is useful for enforcing organization-wide policies.

Plugin precedence

Plugin settings are applied in the following order of precedence:

Request-level settings: Plugin configurations in the plugins array of individual requests
Account defaults: Settings configured in the Plugins settings page

If a plugin is enabled in your account defaults but not specified in a request, the default configuration will be applied. If you specify a plugin in your request, those settings will override the defaults. If you want the account setting to take precedence, toggle on “Prevent overrides” in the config for the plugin. It will then be impossible for generations to override the config.

Disabling a default plugin

If a plugin is enabled by default in your account settings, you can disable it for a specific request by passing "enabled": false in the plugins array:

{
  "model": "openai/gpt-5.2",
  "messages": [...],
  "plugins": [
    { "id": "web", "enabled": false }
  ]
}

This will turn off the web search plugin for that particular request, even if it’s enabled in your account defaults.

Model Variants as Plugin Shortcuts

DeprecatedThe :online variant and the web search plugin are deprecated. Use the openrouter:web_search server tool instead.

Some plugins have convenient model variant shortcuts. For example, appending :online to any model ID enables web search:

{
  "model": "openai/gpt-5.2:online"
}

This is equivalent to:

{
  "model": "openai/gpt-5.2",
  "plugins": [{ "id": "web" }]
}

See Model Variants for more information about available shortcuts.

Overview

Models & Routing

Tool Calling

Features

Observability

Authentication

Ori

Developer Tools

Privacy

Best Practices

Community

Available Plugins

Enabling Plugins via API

Using Multiple Plugins

Default Plugin Settings

Plugin precedence

Disabling a default plugin

Model Variants as Plugin Shortcuts

​Available Plugins

​Enabling Plugins via API

​Using Multiple Plugins

​Default Plugin Settings

​Plugin precedence

​Disabling a default plugin

​Model Variants as Plugin Shortcuts

Available Plugins

Enabling Plugins via API

Using Multiple Plugins

Default Plugin Settings

Plugin precedence

Disabling a default plugin

Model Variants as Plugin Shortcuts