Claude Code

Claude Code is the coding agent that runs in your terminal. It speaks the Anthropic Messages API, which Lovely Router serves natively, so you change two settings, the base URL and the key, and keep everything else. You need an API key first.

Set up in one click#

On the API keys page, use Use in tools → Claude Code. The dialog shows the setup below with your key filled in, and Import with CC Switch adds Lovely Router as a provider in the CC Switch desktop app, with the models already set. CC Switch must be installed.

Right after you create a key, the dialog already contains it. For an existing key, paste the full key into the dialog: Lovely Router stores only a hash, so it can't show the key again.

Set the base URL and key#

Set the base URL and key, then start Claude Code as usual:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://lovelyrouter.com
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=$LOVELY_API_KEY
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-sonnet-5.5
claude

To keep the setting across sessions, put it in ~/.claude/settings.json instead, with your full key:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://lovelyrouter.com",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "lr-...",
    "ANTHROPIC_MODEL": "claude-sonnet-5.5",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "claude-haiku-4.5"
  }
}

Choose models#

ANTHROPIC_MODEL is the main model and ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL handles quick background tasks. Any Claude model id from GET /v1/models works, for example claude-opus-5.5. The model list has every id.

Prompt caching#

Claude Code's prompt caching works through Lovely Router: each session stays on the channel that holds its cache. See Prompt caching.

Add data tools over MCP#

The MCP server at https://lovelyrouter.com/mcp gives Claude Code the data tools and the browser agent, billed from the same balance. It authenticates with the same key:

claude mcp add --transport http lovely https://lovelyrouter.com/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $LOVELY_API_KEY"

This adds it to the current project only. Add --scope user to use it in every project. Run claude mcp list to check that it connects. To share the server with your team through .mcp.json, and for the full list of tools, see MCP server.

Troubleshooting#

Every other status is covered in Errors.