Claude Code Setup

Use Claude Code with FreeInference — no Anthropic API key needed.

Quick Setup (macOS / Linux)

# Download and run the setup script:
curl -fsSL -o setup_claude_code.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HarvardMadSys/hybridInference/main/scripts/setup_claude_code.sh
bash setup_claude_code.sh

The script will ask for your FreeInference API key, configure ~/.claude/settings.json, and test connectivity.

You can also skip the prompt by passing your key as an env var:

FREEINFERENCE_API_KEY="your-key-here" bash setup_claude_code.sh

Manual Setup

If you prefer to configure manually, edit ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://freeinference.org/anthropic",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "<your-freeinference-api-key>",
    "API_TIMEOUT_MS": "600000"
  }
}

On Windows the file is at %USERPROFILE%\.claude\settings.json.

Available Models

Model	Description
`claude-sonnet-4.6`	Default model in Claude Code
`claude-opus-4.6`	Most capable

Usage

cd your-project
claude

That’s it. All Claude Code features (tool use, file editing, search, etc.) work normally.

Troubleshooting

Error	Cause	Fix
401 Authentication error	Bad API key	Check `ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN` in `~/.claude/settings.json`
404 Model not found	Wrong model ID	Claude Code uses the correct IDs by default — don’t override `ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_*_MODEL`
429 Rate limited	Too many requests	Wait a minute and retry
503 Accounts unavailable	Subscription pool exhausted	Wait a minute and retry
Connection timeout	Network issue or proxy down	Check connectivity to `freeinference.org`

Uninstall

Remove the three env vars from ~/.claude/settings.json, or delete the file:

rm ~/.claude/settings.json