Claude Code CLI — Configuration with OmniRoute

Point the Claude Code CLI (claude) at OmniRoute — local or a remote VPS — with per-model profiles, mirroring the Codex setup.

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Quick start

# Launch Claude Code against a local OmniRoute (auto-detects the active context)
omniroute launch

# Against a remote OmniRoute (after `omniroute connect <host>`, this is automatic)
omniroute launch --remote http://192.168.0.15:20128 --api-key oma_live_xxx

# Generate per-model profiles, then launch one
omniroute setup-claude            # writes ~/.claude/profiles/<name>/settings.json
omniroute launch --profile glm52  # Claude Code using glm/glm-5.2 via OmniRoute

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How Claude Code connects to a gateway

Claude Code talks the Anthropic Messages API and is pointed at a custom endpoint with environment variables (it has no --base-url flag):

Variable	Purpose
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL	Gateway root URL (Claude Code appends /v1/messages). No /v1 suffix.
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN	Sent as Authorization: Bearer … — use your OmniRoute access token / API key
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Alternative: sent as x-api-key. If both set, ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN wins
ANTHROPIC_MODEL	Force a specific model (overrides the /model picker default)
CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY	1 → the native /model picker lists claude*/anthropic* models from /v1/models
CLAUDE_CODE_MAX_OUTPUT_TOKENS	Cap output tokens per response (e.g. 65536)
CLAUDE_CODE_AUTO_COMPACT_WINDOW	Token threshold for auto-compaction

Env vars are read once at startup — restart Claude Code after changing them.

omniroute launch sets all of these for you: it resolves the base URL + token from the active context (so omniroute connect <vps> then omniroute launch just works), health-checks the server, and execs claude.

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Discovery aliases — surface non-Claude models in the /model picker

Claude Code’s gateway model discovery only lists ids that begin with claude or anthropic, so with CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY=1 the native /model picker normally shows only OmniRoute’s Claude/Anthropic models — a kimi/kimi-k2.6 or glm/glm-5.2 never appears, even though it routes fine.

OmniRoute can mirror any enabled model (and combo) under a claude/… id so it passes that filter and shows up in the picker:

kimi/kimi-k2.6            →  claude/kimi/kimi-k2.6      "Kimi K2.6 (OmniRoute)"
glm/glm-5.2              →  claude/glm/glm-5.2         "GLM 5.2 (OmniRoute)"
<combo "custo-otimizado"> →  claude/combo/custo-otimizado

When you pick one of these in Claude Code, OmniRoute strips the claude/ wrapper back to the real id before routing — a genuine claude/<real-claude-model> id (the actual Claude OAuth provider) is always left untouched.

This is off by default and controlled by a three-level gate (most specific wins), so a plain OmniRoute never doubles its catalog for clients that don’t use Claude Code:

Level	Where
Model	Provider detail page → per-model “Expose in Claude Code” toggle
Provider	Provider detail page → provider-level toggle (covers all its models)
Global	Settings → Feature Flags → EXPOSE_CC_DISCOVERY_ALIASES (default off)

The EXPOSE_CC_DISCOVERY_ALIASES environment variable forces the global level on and takes precedence over the dashboard override (the Feature Flags screen shows an “active via environment variable” note when it does). Per-provider and per-model toggles refine from there — e.g. global off + Kimi provider on exposes only Kimi’s models.

⚠️ Window mismatch on non-Claude models. Claude Code assumes a 200K context window for any id it doesn’t recognize (it can’t read a real window from /v1/models). For a model with a larger window (e.g. Kimi K2’s 256K), set CLAUDE_CODE_AUTO_COMPACT_WINDOW to a value below the model’s real window so auto-compaction doesn’t fire prematurely. The generated profiles above already do this per model.

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Onboarding block on the dashboard

The Claude tool card (Dashboard → CLI Code) renders the exact settings.json fragment for this instance, next to the discovery-alias info button, with a copy button:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "http://<your OmniRoute>:20128",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "<your OmniRoute API key>",
    "CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY": "1",
  },
}

The base URL is the one resolved by the card (including a custom override you typed), already normalized — no /v1 suffix, no trailing slash. The key is never rendered: the block ships a placeholder, so a screenshot or a pasted snippet cannot leak one. Paste your key over it.

Add CLAUDE_CODE_AUTO_COMPACT_WINDOW under the same env block for any model whose real context window is not 200K — Claude Code assumes 200K for every id it does not recognize, so auto-compaction otherwise fires at the wrong point (see the warning in the previous section). The snippet builder accepts that value too, so a caller that knows the target model’s window can emit it directly.

Source: src/shared/services/claudeCliConfig.ts::buildClaudeDiscoverySettingsSnippet (pure builder, unit-tested) rendered by ClaudeGatewayOnboardingBlock.

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Profiles (CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR)

Claude Code has no native profile files (unlike Codex’s ~/.codex/<name>.config.toml). The idiomatic mechanism is CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR — a separate config directory per profile, each with its own settings.json, credentials, history and cache.

omniroute setup-claude fetches the live /v1/models catalog and writes one profile per model at ~/.claude/profiles/<name>/settings.json, reusing the same names as setup-codex (glm52, kimi-k27, deepseek-pro, …):

~/.claude/profiles/glm52/settings.json

{
  "$schema": "https://json.schemastore.org/claude-code-settings.json",
  "model": "glm/glm-5.2",
  "effortLevel": "xhigh",
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "http://192.168.0.15:20128",
    "ANTHROPIC_MODEL": "glm/glm-5.2",
    "CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY": "1",
    "CLAUDE_CODE_AUTO_COMPACT_WINDOW": "190000",
  },
}

The auth token is never written to the profile. Launch with omniroute launch --profile <name> (it injects ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN from the active context), or export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN yourself and run CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude/profiles/<name> claude.

Auto-sync after model discovery (opt-in). OmniRoute can regenerate these same ~/.claude/profiles/<name>/settings.json files automatically whenever a provider model sync changes the live catalog — so new/renamed models get profiles without re-running the command. It is off by default: toggle it from the CLI Code dashboard (“CLI profile auto-sync” → Claude Code), or set OMNIROUTE_AUTO_SYNC_CLAUDE_PROFILES=true (it also honors CLI_ALLOW_CONFIG_WRITES, on by default). When enabled it only writes profile files; it never changes your active/default Claude config, auth, or the ~/.claude/settings.json.

Generating + using profiles

# Local OmniRoute
omniroute setup-claude

# Remote VPS (bakes the VPS URL into every profile)
omniroute setup-claude --remote http://192.168.0.15:20128 --api-key oma_live_xxx

# Only some providers
omniroute setup-claude --only glm,kimi

# Preview without writing
omniroute setup-claude --dry-run

# Launch a profile
omniroute launch --profile kimi-k27

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Model tiers (optional)

Claude Code routes to capability tiers. Map each to an OmniRoute model via env / settings if you want different providers per tier:

export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="glm/glm-5.2"
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="kmc/kimi-k2.6"
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="glm/glm-4.7-flash"

Otherwise a single ANTHROPIC_MODEL (what profiles set) is used for everything.

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Remote mode

Once you’ve run omniroute connect <host> (see Remote Mode), omniroute launch and omniroute setup-claude automatically target that remote server and use its scoped access token — no extra flags needed. Override per-invocation with --remote / --api-key.

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Troubleshooting

Claude Code ignores the gateway — confirm ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL has no /v1 and restart claude (env is read once at startup). omniroute launch handles this for you.

/model picker is empty / missing gateway models — needs Claude Code v2.1.219+ and CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY=1. Only claude* / anthropic* model IDs appear in the picker; force any other model with ANTHROPIC_MODEL=<id> (this is what profiles do).

400 Ambiguous model 'claude-…' — Claude Code always sends unprefixed model IDs (e.g. claude-opus-4-8), so when both the Claude Code (cc/…) and Claude (claude/…) providers are connected the bare id matches two routes and OmniRoute refuses to guess. Fix it either way: pin a prefixed id with ANTHROPIC_MODEL=cc/claude-opus-4-8, or enable Prefer Claude Code for unprefixed Claude models — the toggle on the Claude provider page, or OMNIROUTE_PREFER_CLAUDE_CODE_FOR_UNPREFIXED_CLAUDE_MODELS=true (default off; see Environment) — which routes bare claude-* IDs to Claude Code instead. Explicit provider prefixes always win.

Auth errors — the profile holds no token. Use omniroute launch --profile (injects it) or export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN.

Profiles don’t isolate — each profile is a distinct CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR; verify echo $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR inside the session points at ~/.claude/profiles/<name>.

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OmniRoute source repository (a58000c7685f)