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Claude Code (using Anthropic Models)

You can follow these instructions to use your AI-VERDE API key after installing Claude Code. More information on using Claude Code can be found here, https://code.claude.com/docs/en/overview.

Note

These instructions assume your course or team is connected to Anthropic models (Opus/Sonnet/Haiku from Anthropic, Azure or other providers with Anthropic-style APIs). If you need access to Claude Code using a non-Anthropic model, then see the instructions here or use Claude Code Router.

Note

If your Claude models are hosted on AWS Bedrock, we recommend the Bedrock-style setup instead. The Bedrock setup uses ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN instead of ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, because Claude Code only sends ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN when talking to a Bedrock endpoint.

Prerequisites

  1. Your AI-VERDE course or team must be configured to use Anthropic models (see instructor or team lead).
  2. Obtain your AI-VERDE API key. Instructions can be found here.
  3. Note the model names for the Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku models available to your course or team. Instructions for listing available models can be found here.
  4. Install Claude Code. Instructions can be found here, https://code.claude.com/docs/en/setup.
  5. The remaining instructions assume a terminal on macOS or Linux with bash and Claude Code installed. On Windows, Option 1 below works the same way, with the file at %USERPROFILE%\.claude\settings.json.

1. Configure Claude Code

Model names in AI-VERDE are prefixed with an identifier for your course or team, separated by a dash or a slash (e.g. my-team-claude-sonnet-5 or my-team/claude-sonnet-5). Use the exact names from your model list; Anthropic's public model IDs (e.g. claude-sonnet-5) will not work.

Add the following env section to ~/.claude/settings.json (create the file if it does not exist). Settings in this file apply every time you run Claude Code, in any terminal.

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://llm-api.cyverse.ai",
    "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "<your-ai-verde-api-key>",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL": "<model name for opus>",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL": "<model name for sonnet>",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "<model name for haiku>"
  }
}

For example:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://llm-api.cyverse.ai",
    "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "sk-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL": "my-team-claude-opus-5",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL": "my-team-claude-sonnet-5",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "my-team-claude-haiku-4-5"
  }
}

If the file already has other settings, add the env section alongside them rather than replacing the file.

Warning

~/.claude/settings.json holds your API key. Keep the key in this user-level file, not in a project's .claude/settings.json, and don't commit or share it.

Option 2: Shell environment variables

Alternatively, export the same variables in your terminal before launching Claude Code:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://llm-api.cyverse.ai"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="<your-ai-verde-api-key>"
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="<model name for opus>"
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="<model name for sonnet>"
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="<model name for haiku>"

Exported variables only last for the current terminal session. To avoid re-entering them each session, add the lines to your shell profile (e.g. ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc), then source your shell profile.

Note

To obtain the AI-VERDE Anthropic Base URL, simply remove /v1 (e.g. https://llm-api.cyverse.ai/v1 => https://llm-api.cyverse.ai). If both ~/.claude/settings.json and your shell set the same variable, the value in ~/.claude/settings.json is used.

2. Start Claude Code

You can then run Claude Code.

claude

The first time Claude Code detects ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, it asks whether to use the custom API key. Select Yes. You can run /status inside Claude Code to confirm the base URL and API key it is using.

To use Claude Code inside VS Code, see Claude Code for VS Code.

If you need to change your ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

If for some reason you need to change your AI-VERDE API key, update ANTHROPIC_API_KEY wherever you set it in step 1 (~/.claude/settings.json or your shell profile), then restart Claude Code. If you previously declined the key prompt, Claude Code ignores the key without asking again; re-enable it with the Use custom API key option under /config.