feat: CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_BASE_URL env var for custom OpenAI-compatible gateways

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Originally posted as issue #2320 by @DuanneBesso
#2320

Note: I'd open this as a PR but the repo restricts cross-fork PRs to collaborators ("An owner of this repository has limited the ability to open a pull request to users that are collaborators on this repository"). Filing as an issue per that policy. Branch with the proposed change is pushed and ready at:
https://github.com/DuanneBesso/claude-mem/tree/feat/openrouter-base-url-override

Summary

Adds an optional CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_BASE_URL setting that overrides the hardcoded https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 base URL when set. Backward-compatible: when the value is empty or unset, the existing URL is used unchanged.

Use cases

• Self-hosted gateways. Route OpenRouter-shaped requests through LiteLLM, Portkey, or any other OpenAI-compatible proxy on http://localhost:4000/v1.
• Local-only inference for privacy-sensitive deployments. Run compaction against local Ollama (or LM Studio) via a local OpenAI-compatible proxy. Compacted memory snippets — which often include code, conversation context, and HIPAA-adjacent material in clinical/healthcare deployments — never leave the machine.
• Corporate proxies. Route through an enterprise gateway that requires a fixed URL.
• Testing / mocking. Point at a local fixture server during integration tests.

Implementation

• New resolveOpenRouterApiUrl() reads CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_BASE_URL from settings.json first, falls back to process.env, then to the existing public URL.
• Strips trailing slashes before appending /chat/completions so both http://localhost:4000/v1 and http://localhost:4000/v1/ work.
• Resolved once at module load — matches the existing static-constant pattern; no per-request overhead.

Backward compatibility

Zero breaking change. Existing users with no override see byte-identical behavior. The default-defaults dictionary just gains one new empty-string field.

Files touched

• src/services/worker/OpenRouterProvider.ts — read base URL via resolveOpenRouterApiUrl()
• src/shared/SettingsDefaultsManager.ts — add field to SettingsDefaults type + DEFAULTS object
• src/ui/viewer/types.ts — add optional field to viewer settings type
• src/ui/viewer/constants/settings.ts — add empty-string default for the viewer
• src/ui/viewer/hooks/useSettings.ts — pass-through in viewer's settings load

Diff: main...DuanneBesso:claude-mem:feat/openrouter-base-url-override

Verification

Tested against a real local LiteLLM proxy (http://localhost:4000/v1) routing to Ollama-hosted Qwen2.5-Coder. claude-mem successfully:

• Issues OpenAI-format POST /chat/completions requests to the new URL
• Receives well-formed responses
• Stores observations in the local SQLite + Chroma vector store as expected
• Logs OpenRouter API usage {model=local-coder, ...} (the local model alias) without errors

When CLAUDE_MEM_OPENROUTER_BASE_URL is empty or unset, behavior is identical to the pre-patch state — verified by reverting the env var and confirming requests go to https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions as before.

Maintainer-friendly merge options

If you'd like to merge this:

1. Pull the branch directly: git fetch https://github.com/DuanneBesso/claude-mem.git feat/openrouter-base-url-override && git cherry-pick <commit> (one commit, SHA 81731a3)
2. Add me as a collaborator so I can open the PR through your normal flow
3. Or I can copy the diff inline if you prefer that format

Happy to add a unit test assertion for the new default field if you want — left tests untouched to keep the change small. Thanks for maintaining claude-mem!