docs(sdk): introduce litellm-core and announce leaner installation

[joshua-berri]

Summary

Introduce litellm-core in the SDK docs and add the October 8, 2026 announcement by LiteLLM Team. The guide covers package selection, unchanged Python imports, optional AWS/tokenizer dependencies, and the restriction against co-installing both distributions. Quickstart, SDK overview, and sidebar links make the guide discoverable

The blog leads with approximately 65.6 MB less installed disk space in the recorded source-build comparison and frames further reductions as ongoing work, with a goal of around 10 total dependencies including transitives. It does not claim faster imports

Rollout dependency

Merge after the SDK changes land and the documented installation is available: BerriAI/litellm#44340 and BerriAI/litellm#44447. Release integration: https://github.com/BerriAI/project-releaser/pull/293

Benchmark evidence remains tied to baseline 5d207d85ee547bc323d704bc6aaab901aa0be8b6 and core 029a626c99ec8c6012512b18ecea075a90db9dcd, rather than being presented as a benchmark of later branch revisions. The latest core manifest, namespace guard, and builder match the measured revision

Validation

Local repository writing checks passed across 1,219 Markdown files; all 911 docs passed structural checks. The new blog also passed structural checks, both new pages passed strict writing checks, and the diff passed whitespace validation

The shared local Node environment passed four tests and failed two in unchanged test tooling: the image-concurrency timer assertion and missing ESM dependency resolution for Lens. Full site build validation is left to the PR checks

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated
litellm	Ready	Preview	Oct 9, 2026 2:22am UTC