CodexBar declined the AnyRouter provider on endorsement grounds

steipete/CodexBar closed both AnyRouter provider PRs unmerged on 2026-07-17 — #2171 (duyetbot) and #2218 (joeVenner). The integration code was called clean; the block is endorsement: "Shipping a provider in CodexBar is an implicit endorsement, so for aggregator/relay services I hold a higher bar than code quality."

Three gates were named, and only the first is really blocking:

1. Identifiable operator — hard gate, still open. "I can't point users at a service whose operator I can't identify."
2. Authorized upstream access — wants a public statement of reseller/API agreements.
3. Track record — the service was very new.

Why: the code was never the problem. Reopening the PR before gate 1 closes earns a third decline on identical grounds.

How to apply: gate 1 needs a real legal person, not a copy edit — no entity is named in src/app/terms.tsx (operator is established, AnyRouter and its operators) and src/app/contact.tsx records the choice outright: "the company does not publish one." Never publish an entity name before it exists; an unnamed operator is an absence of information, a wrong entity is a false legal claim. Tracked in duyet/anyrouter#3650.

Gates 2 and 3 are largely satisfiable from work already done: the 2026-08-26 Terms added a provider allowlist for donated keys, Polar is merchant of record, and inception was 2026-04-11. The public /brand page ships anyrouter-logo-currentcolor.svg (correct for a menu-bar app) and accent #F38020 — the declined PR had a stale #f6821f.

Frame any re-proposal BYOK-first: the integration only reads your own key's credit balance over one read-only endpoint, so the shared pool is outside its surface.

Status 2026-09-27: re-proposed as steipete/CodexBar#4055, rebuilt on the current plugin architecture (see tech-codexbar-new-provider-is-a-plugin) — 25 lines of Swift plus a .ts, down from ~690 lines of bespoke Swift. Local gates green: 855 tests/113 suites, swiftformat, swiftlint, site locales, doc links, generated manifests. CI sits at action_required because a fork PR needs maintainer approval, so it has not run upstream yet. The PR states plainly that gate 1 is still open and asks what form of disclosure would satisfy it rather than papering over it.

Hub: project-anyrouter.