Configure Claude Code

Claude Code talks to Anthropic by default. Switching it to StoryClaw takes two things: an endpoint and your API key.

If Claude Code is not installed yet, start with Install Claude Code. Create your key on the API Keys page of the console — see API Keys. Pick either option below; the result is identical.

Option A: manual setup

Set two environment variables:

# macOS / Linux — add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc to persist
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://llm.storyclaw.com"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-storyclaw-key"

# Windows (PowerShell) — reopen the terminal afterwards
setx ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL "https://llm.storyclaw.com"
setx ANTHROPIC_API_KEY "your-storyclaw-key"

You can also configure this per project by putting the same two values in the env field of .claude/settings.json (or ~/.claude/settings.json for a global default):

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://llm.storyclaw.com",
    "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "your-storyclaw-key"
  }
}

Option B: the CC Switch GUI

CC Switch is an open-source provider manager that handles the same settings through a GUI, with no JSON or environment variables to edit by hand, and makes switching between providers easy. On macOS, brew install --cask cc-switch is all it takes; other platforms are covered in CC Switch.

Add a provider

Launch CC Switch, select Claude Code at the top, then click the + button in the upper right.

In the "Add new provider" dialog, click Custom configuration, then Add.

Fill in the settings

Find the entry you just created in the list and click the edit icon (pencil) on its right to open the "Edit provider" page.

Fill in the form as below and leave everything else at its default:

Expand Model mapping below the form and map the Sonnet and Opus tiers to StoryClaw model IDs:

You can also click Fetch model list and pick from the dropdown arrow to the right of "Model requested". For the authoritative list of IDs, see Available models.

CC Switch writes ~/.claude/settings.json for you, so no files need editing by hand.

Enable the provider

Click Save in the lower right. Back in the list, hover the StoryClaw-CC row and click the Enable button that appears. A highlighted row means it is active.

Verify the setup

Go to a project directory and start Claude Code:

cd your-project
claude

Press Esc to skip the login prompt on first launch. Then check the status line at the top: API Usage Billing means requests are billed through the API, and the item before it is the current model.

If that looks right, the setup is done. Send any message; a normal reply means you are good to go.

To double-check the details, run /status in the session and look at two lines:

• Anthropic base URL should read https://llm.storyclaw.com
• Model is the model actually in use

Available models

Claude Code uses the /v1/messages endpoint, and StoryClaw serves Claude models only there:

Check the current list any time:

curl https://llm.storyclaw.com/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Models whose api is anthropic-messages are the ones Claude Code can use. StoryClaw keeps adding newer models — update the version number in your configuration when it does.

Choosing a model

Switch models any time with /model. To pin a default, set this environment variable:

export ANTHROPIC_MODEL="claude-sonnet-5"

Troubleshooting

For install problems or a missing claude command, see Install Claude Code.