Claude Code

Before you start

• A NezhaGate API key (create one on the API Keys page of the console).
• Claude Code installed. If it is not, run this (Node.js 18 or later):

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Step 1: set the environment variables

Set them in the terminal where you will run claude. ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN is your NezhaGate key; ANTHROPIC_MODEL is the model used by default.

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://nezhagate.com/anthropic
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=YOUR_API_KEY
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-sonnet-5
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL=claude-sonnet-5
claude

$env:ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL = "https://nezhagate.com/anthropic"
$env:ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN = "YOUR_API_KEY"
$env:ANTHROPIC_MODEL = "claude-sonnet-5"
$env:ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL = "claude-sonnet-5"
claude

These last only for the current terminal; a new terminal needs them again. To make them stick, use settings.json in the next step.

Step 2 (recommended): put them in settings.json

Write the same settings into Claude Code's user settings file and every terminal picks them up. The file is ~/.claude/settings.json on macOS / Linux and %USERPROFILE%\.claude\settings.json on Windows; create it if it does not exist.

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://nezhagate.com/anthropic",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "YOUR_API_KEY",
    "ANTHROPIC_MODEL": "claude-sonnet-5",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL": "claude-sonnet-5",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL": "claude-opus-5",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "claude-sonnet-5"
  }
}

Step 3: start and check

Run claude in your project folder, then type /status to see the current settings and check that the base URL is https://nezhagate.com/anthropic.

Choose a model

Claude Code can only use Claude models (the /anthropic endpoint accepts Claude models only). Available now:

Prices in US dollars per million tokens.

Type /model followed by a model ID to switch during a session, for example /model claude-opus-5. Which model the Opus and Sonnet entries of the /model menu use is set by ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL and ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL.

The background model

Claude Code hands small background jobs (such as naming a conversation) to a small model and asks for Claude Haiku by default. NezhaGate does not offer Haiku, so point ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL at one of the models above, or those background requests come back 404.

Billing and caching

Billed per token, at the same prices as the /v1 endpoints. Prompt-cache hits are billed at the cache-read price in the table above, far below the input price. Claude Code sends the same system prompt and project context every turn, so it usually hits the cache every turn.

Common errors