A lightweight Rust launcher that lets you run the official Claude Code CLI against any OpenAI/Anthropic-compatible provider — OpenRouter, Ollama, vLLM, LiteLLM, your own gateway — without juggling environment variables by hand.
lcc start --profil openrouterClaude Code reads its provider configuration from environment variables
(ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL, ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, ANTHROPIC_MODEL, …). Editing
your shell rc file every time you want to swap from Claude → OpenRouter →
local Ollama is painful. lcc keeps named profiles in a single JSON file
and injects the right env vars per launch.
A single profile can also hold multiple models behind one provider, so
once you're inside Claude Code, the built-in /model command lets you switch
models on the fly without restarting the session.
Requires Rust 1.85+ (edition 2024) and the official claude CLI installed
(Claude Code docs).
git clone https://github.com/eRom/launch-ccode-cli.git
cd launch-ccode-cli
cargo install --path .Then create your config at ~/.config/launch-claude-code/settings.json —
see config-sample.json for a starting point.
Map one model to one provider. Simplest form:
{
"profiles": {
"ollama-local": {
"model": "gemma4",
"base_url": "http://localhost:11434/v1",
"api_key": "",
"auth_token": "ollama"
}
}
}lcc start --profil ollama-local${VAR} placeholders in any string field are expanded from your shell
environment at launch time, so secrets never live in the file:
"auth_token": "${OPENROUTER_API_KEY}"When you have one provider and several models behind it (typical OpenRouter setup), declare them all under one profile:
{
"profiles": {
"openrouter": {
"base_url": "https://openrouter.ai/api",
"auth_token": "${OPENROUTER_API_KEY}",
"default": "deepseek-v4-pro",
"models": {
"owl-alpha": { "id": "openrouter/owl-alpha", "slot": "opus" },
"deepseek-v4-pro": { "id": "deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro", "slot": "sonnet" },
"deepseek-v4-flash": { "id": "deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash", "slot": "haiku" },
"kimi": { "id": "moonshotai/kimi-k2.6", "slot": "custom",
"description": "Moonshot Kimi K2.6" },
"gemma-4-26b": { "id": "google/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it" },
"glm-5.1": { "id": "z-ai/glm-5.1" }
}
}
}
}Each slot maps to a Claude Code env var so the model appears in the
interactive /model picker:
slot | Env var | /model behaviour |
|---|---|---|
opus | ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL | /model opus switches instantly |
sonnet | ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL | /model sonnet switches instantly |
haiku | ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL (+ ANTHROPIC_SMALL_FAST_MODEL) | /model haiku switches instantly; same model also used for background tasks (web summaries, session titles, hooks) |
custom | ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_MODEL_OPTION (+ _NAME / _DESCRIPTION) | adds an extra entry to the picker |
| (none) | — | reachable via full slug: /model google/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it |
Only one model can claim slot: "custom". Models without a slot still work
— Claude Code accepts any arbitrary model id at the /model prompt and
validates it through a small probe call.
lcc start --profil openrouter
# inside Claude Code:# /model → opens the picker# /model opus → switches to owl-alpha# /model haiku → switches to deepseek-v4-flash# /model z-ai/glm-5.1lcc list # show configured profiles
lcc settings # open the JSON file in your editor
lcc settings --validate # parse-check the JSON
lcc start --profil <name> [args…] # launch claude with the given profile
Anything after --profil <name> is passed straight through to claude, so
you can override the model at launch time or use any native flag:
lcc start --profil openrouter --model moonshotai/kimi-k2.6
lcc start --profil openrouter -- --output-format json -p "hello"~/.config/launch-claude-code/settings.json:
Authentication: if both api_key and auth_token are set, the API key wins
(set as ANTHROPIC_API_KEY). Empty api_key falls back to auth_token
(set as ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN). At least one must be non-empty.
- Claude Code's non-interactive print mode (
-p) parses the model's response with a strict extractor that expects an Anthropic-native content shape. Some non-Anthropic models served via OpenAI-compat gateways return blocks the extractor doesn't surface, leavingresultempty even though the model billed tokens. Interactive mode works fine for those models. This is a Claude Code ↔ provider compatibility issue, not anlccissue.
Prerequisites:
- macOS
brew install uvOPENROUTER_API_KEY(or other provider key) exported in.zshrc- A profile in
~/.config/launch-claude-code/settings.jsonpointing to OpenRouter (e.g.,qwenwithmodel: qwen/qwen3.6-plus)
# 1. Build + install
cargo install --path .# 2. Setup proxy (one-shot, ~30s)
lcc proxy install
# 3. Verify everything is green
lcc proxy doctor
# Expected: 7 lines "[✓]"# 4. First call
lcc start --profil qwen -p "Say hello to me in one sentence"# Expected: actual text response (not an empty terminal!)# 5. Verify that `thinking` blocks are stripped
lcc proxy logs | grep -i thinking ||echo"OK: no thinking in recent logs"# 6. Test direct claude path (should always work)
claude -p "ping"# Expected: native Anthropic response, completely independent from the proxyIf step 4 fails silently (empty terminal), it's a regression. Debug:
lcc proxy logs— the exact error returned by the provider- Direct call to the proxy via curl:
curl -sS http://localhost:4000/v1/messages \
-H "x-api-key: $(security find-generic-password -s lcc.litellm.master_key -w)" \
-H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
-H "content-type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"qwen","max_tokens":50,"messages":[{"role":"user","content":"hi"}]}'MIT — see LICENSE.
{ "profiles": { "<name>": { // === Single-model profile ==="model": "<model id>", "base_url": "<provider URL>", "api_key": "<key or ${ENV}>", // wins if non-empty"auth_token": "<token or ${ENV}>", // used if api_key is empty"env": { "EXTRA_VAR": "value" } // optional, passed to claude// === OR Multi-model profile ==="base_url":"<provider URL>", "auth_token": "${ENV}", "default": "<key in models>", "models": { "<friendly name>": { "id": "<model id>", "slot": "opus"|"sonnet"|"haiku"|"custom", // optional"description": "<shown in custom picker>"// optional } }, "env": { "EXTRA_VAR": "value" } // optional } } }