Claude Code Router

Claude Code Router is an open-source Node.js command-line interface (CLI) tool that extends Anthropic's Claude Code CLI. It serves as a foundation for coding infrastructure, enabling users to route AI coding requests to various large language models (LLMs) from different providers such as OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Ollama, Google Gemini, and Volcengine. This tool offers enhanced flexibility and customization for AI coding workflows, allowing users to tailor coding assistance to specific needs, optimize for different tasks (e.g., background processing, high-reasoning, long contexts), and manage costs by selecting appropriate models. It builds upon Anthropic's official tools, offering additional customization options and dynamic model switching.

How to Use

To use Claude Code Router, first ensure Node.js and npm are installed. Then, install Anthropic’s Claude Code CLI by running npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code. Next, install the router itself with npm install -g @musistudio/claude-code-router, which adds the ccr command. Launch the router by running ccr code. Users can optionally configure routing rules and providers by creating or editing the ~/.claude-code-router/config.json file. This configuration allows defining API keys, base URLs, available models, and specific roles for models (e.g., default, background, think, longContext). Once set up, users interact with Claude Code as normal, and the router intercepts and forwards requests based on the configuration. Models can also be switched dynamically at runtime using the /model provider,model command.

Claude Code Router's

Key Features

• Multi-model Routing: Route queries to any configured provider or model, with dynamic switching using commands like /model provider,model.
• Specialized Model Roles: Designate specific models for background tasks, high-reasoning tasks (think mode), and handling long contexts.
• Extensibility: Supports integration with image and web-search tools, detailed logging, and GitHub Actions.
• Flexible Configuration: Fully customizable via a JSON config file (~/.claude-code-router/config.json) for providers and routing rules.
• Cost Optimization: Route requests to more cost-effective models for specific tasks to reduce overall AI coding assistance costs.

Use Cases

• Tailoring AI coding assistance to specific project needs.
• Optimizing AI model usage for different tasks (e.g., using a simpler model for background tasks, a powerful model for reasoning).
• Managing large conversations or codebases with models optimized for long contexts.
• Automating code reviews or creating issue bots via GitHub Actions integration.
• Reducing AI coding costs by routing requests to more economical models.