Venice Text-Model Routing
This skill encodes the decision logic for "which Venice text model do I call?" — the routing layer that sits above venice-chat (the call surface) and consumes venice-models (the discovery API).
Primary use case: a local agent receives a prompt, decides whether the local model can handle it, and — if not — picks the cheapest Venice model that satisfies the privacy / modality / capability requirements.
Snapshot freshness
> Before applying the matrix below, read snapshots/text-routing.json. If the file is missing, or snapshot_date is older than 30 days, run python scripts/refresh_routing.py to regenerate it from GET /models?type=text + GET /models/traits?type=text. Otherwise trust the cached file — do not hit /models on every routing decision.
refresh_routing.py requires VENICE_API_KEY in the environment and rewrites both snapshots/text-routing.json and routing-matrix.md. Run it once on first install, then ~monthly (CI nightly is also fine).
When to load this skill
- Picking a Venice text model from a prompt at runtime.
- Building a local-first agent that escalates to Venice for hard prompts.
- Deciding privacy tier (anonymized vs private vs TEE vs E2EE).
- Choosing between a trait shortcut (
default_reasoning,most_intelligent, …) and a hand-filtered candidate.
For the chat call surface itself, see venice-chat. For raw discovery of every model field, see venice-models.
Privacy tier ladder
Pick the least restrictive tier that satisfies the request — restricting tier shrinks the candidate pool and often raises cost.
| Tier | Selector | Guarantee | Use when |
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