> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.costa.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# 💫 Cosmic Routers

# What is a Cosmic Router?

**Cosmic Routers** are agentic routers that take coding to the next level. They intelligently select the best model for every request — giving **better outcomes** at **faster speeds** with **lower costs**.

And they work inside of the apps you already use and love.

Different models are good at different things, and Cosmic Routers unlock that potential across ecosystems.

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
    A[👨‍🚀 Coder via Claude/Cursor/...] --> B[💫 Cosmic Router]
    B --> C[🏛️ Architect Model]
    B --> D[💻 Coding Model]
    B --> E[📖 Documenting Model]
    B --> F[⚡️ Optimization Model]
```

***

# How do Cosmic Routers work?

**First, every request is individually analyzed**

Costa deeply analyzes a request before sending it to a model. It chooses the best model for the request based on:

1. `🔀` **type** — semantic analysis of task (coding, planning, documenting, etc...)
2. `🏎️💨` **speed** — the latest response times and model output speed (<Tooltip tip="Time to First Token">TTFT</Tooltip> and <Tooltip tip="tokens per second">TPS</Tooltip>)
3. `🏔️` **complexity** — is this an easy or difficult task

**Then, every request is individually secured**

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
    A[👨‍🚀 Coder via Claude/Cursor/...] -- Unfiltered Request --> B[💫 Costa Auto Router]
    B -- Filtered Request --> C[🤖 AI Model]
    C -- Filtered Response --> B
    B -- Unfiltered Response --> A
```

Every request is filtered (often redacted) for security before it is sent to a model. The results are then unredacted, the result is analyzed for security, and it is passed back to the user. This all happens in real time and faster than the speed of inference.

### Why secure requests?

Cosmic Routers combine the performance of using frontier models for complex tasks with the security and cost advantages of low-cost open-weight models. But this also increases your attack surface.

Without careful safeguards, routing across multiple models is dangerous. Cosmic Routers are built to close security gaps by securing every request end-to-end. We call this **Zero Trust AI**.

***

# How powerful is Cosmic Routing?

The latest research shows that adaptive routing can [**match the strongest models' accuracy while cutting costs by over 25%**](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12631), or deliver [**90% of peak performance at more than 60% lower cost**](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12631). With Cosmic Routers, those savings aren't just theoretical—we **pass them along directly to you**.

And we do it all **securely**. Every routing decision happens inside Costa's zero-trust infrastructure, ensuring requests and responses remain private, protected, and compliant.

Just doing a random coin flip on each request between two of the latest models [increases the SWEBench score by more than 3%](https://www.swebench.com/SWE-bench/blog/2025/08/19/mini-roulette/).

Cosmic Routers raise SWEBench scores of the underlying models <Tooltip tip="some agentic routers raise SWEBench scores by more than 10%">even more</Tooltip> while costing an order of magnitude less — and those improvements are shared across all of your coding agents.

***

# Which Cosmic Router should I choose?

Costa offers multiple Cosmic Routers that all work slightly differently. In order to help you choose the best Cosmic Router for each task, we provide a model card, which is sort of like a nutrition label but for AI:

<div class="tw-reset costatw:grid costatw:grid-cols-1 costatw:gap-5 costatw:md:grid-cols-2">
  <div class="costatw:flex costatw:flex-col costatw:gap-2 costatw:md:gap-x-5 costatw:justify-start costatw:items-start costatw:w-full costatw:h-full costatw:bg-gray-100 costatw:rounded-md costatw:dark:bg-gray-800">
    <div class="costatw:p-3 costatw:flex-col costatw:text-center costatw:w-full">
      <div class="costatw:dark:text-gray-100">💫 Orbit</div>
      <div class="costatw:text-xs">`costa/orbit`</div>
    </div>

    <div class="costatw:w-full costatw:h-px costatw:bg-gray-200 costatw:dark:bg-gray-700" />

    <div class="costatw:p-3 costatw:grid costatw:w-full costatw:grid-cols-1 costatw:text-xs costatw:gap-3">
      <div>**SWEBench:** 72.1</div>

      <div class="costatw:flex-col costatw:flex">
        <p class="costatw:pb-2">**Models Included:**</p>

        <ul class="costatw:grid costatw:grid-cols-1 costatw:gap-2 costatw:pt-4">
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/claude-opus-4.6`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/claude-sonnet-4.5`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/claude-haiku-4.5`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`openai/gpt-5.2-codex`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`openai/gpt-5-mini`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`openai/gpt-4.1`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/gemini-3-flash`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/gemini-3-pro`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/qwen3-coder`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/glm-4.7`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/kimi-k2`</p>
        </ul>
      </div>

      <div>**Last Changed** 2026-02-06</div>
    </div>

    <div class="costatw:w-full costatw:h-px costatw:bg-gray-200 costatw:dark:bg-gray-700" />

    <div class="costatw:p-3 costatw:grid costatw:w-full costatw:grid-cols-1 costatw:text-xs costatw:gap-3">
      <div class="costatw:p-3 costatw:flex-col costatw:w-full">
        <p>**Stability:** 🛰️ Stable</p>
        <p>**Pricing Tier:** ✨ Cosmic</p>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="costatw:flex costatw:flex-col costatw:gap-2 costatw:justify-start costatw:items-start costatw:w-full costatw:h-full costatw:bg-gray-100 costatw:rounded-md costatw:dark:bg-gray-800">
    <div class="costatw:p-3 costatw:flex-col costatw:text-center costatw:w-full">
      <div class="costatw:dark:text-gray-100">💫 Nebula</div>
      <div class="costatw:text-xs">`costa/nebula`</div>
    </div>

    <div class="costatw:w-full costatw:h-px costatw:bg-gray-200 costatw:dark:bg-gray-700" />

    <div class="costatw:p-3 costatw:grid costatw:w-full costatw:grid-cols-1 costatw:text-xs costatw:gap-3">
      <div>**SWEBench:** 75.9</div>

      <div class="costatw:flex-col costatw:flex">
        <p class="costatw:pb-2">**Models Included:**</p>

        <ul class="costatw:grid costatw:grid-cols-1 costatw:gap-2 costatw:pt-4">
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/claude-opus-4.6`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/claude-4.5-sonnet`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/gemini-3-pro`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`openai/gpt-5.2-codex`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/qwen3-coder`</p>
          <p class="costatw:!m-0">`vertex/glm-4.7`</p>
        </ul>
      </div>

      <div>**Last Changed** 2026-02-06</div>
    </div>

    <div class="costatw:w-full costatw:h-px costatw:bg-gray-200 costatw:dark:bg-gray-700" />

    <div class="costatw:p-3 costatw:grid costatw:w-full costatw:grid-cols-1 costatw:text-xs costatw:gap-3">
      <div class="costatw:p-3 costatw:flex-col costatw:w-full">
        <p>**Stability:** 🛰️ Stable</p>
        <p>**Pricing Tier:** ✨ Cosmic</p>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

The model card lets you know which models may be called, what problems the Cosmic Router is designed to solve, and how often you can expect it to change. Because there are so many agentic coding tools, and most of them are constantly changing, we are always tuning Cosmic Routers to work well with the latest models and techniques.

***

# Cosmic Routing means lower cost to you

`💫 Costa Orbit` is almost as powerful as Claude Sonnet 4.5 / Gemini 3-pro...

<div className="full-bleed">
  ```mermaid theme={null}
  ---
  config:
      xyChart:
          plotReservedSpacePercent: 80
  ---
  xychart-beta
      title "Coding Performance (higher is better)"
      x-axis ["Opus 4.6", "Sonnet 4.5", "Gemini 3 Pro", "💫 Costa Orbit", "GPT-5.2", "GLM4.7", "Qwen3-Coder"]
      y-axis "SWE-bench % Resolved" 0 --> 100
      bar [80.8, 77.2, 74.2, 72.1, 71.8, 73.8, 70.6]
  ```
</div>

... and because of Costa's **Zero Trust AI**, we are able to offer `💫 Costa Orbit` at **1/20th of the price** of Claude Sonnet 4 and **1/5th of GPT-5 mini**:

```mermaid theme={null}
xychart-beta
    title "Cost (lower is better)"
    x-axis ["Claude Opus 4.6", "GPT-5 mini", "💫 Costa Orbit"]
    y-axis "Cost for 📖 10k context in Costa ✨ pts " 0 --> 60
    bar [40, 10, 2]
```