I have been using the same small checklist whenever I try a new OpenAI-compatible LLM gateway. It catches most integration failures before I move any real workload. For Chinese models like Qwen, DeepSeek, GLM and Kimi, the first blocker is often not model quality. It is account setup, payment, model naming and whether the gateway gives enough request logs to debug the first call. I am collecting small first-call failure cases while building AnLink API notes. If you are testing this path, the beta entry is here: https://anlinkai.com/?ref=r_d0dbd2241021
source & further reading
dev.to — original article
Reviewing Patrick Collison's Ask for an LLM Workflow Tool
5 AI-Entertainment Hacks That Hit 100+ Upvotes — and What I Learned From Each
Prefix caching at scale: when it saves you 80% of prefill cost, and the eviction policies that quietly turn it into 5%