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Claude Code

Claude Code speaks the Anthropic Messages API, which UsePod serves directly, so the wire-up is two environment variables and no configuration file at all.

Setup

Section titled “Setup”
Terminal window
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="UsePod"
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://api.usepod.ai/proxy/<TOKEN>"


claude

Replace <TOKEN> with the API token from your dashboard. ANTHROPIC_API_KEY can be any non-empty string: the token in the base URL is what authenticates the request, but the SDK refuses to send a request without the header present, so the variable has to exist.

Note the absence of a /v1 suffix on the Anthropic surface. Claude Code appends the API path itself, and a base URL ending in /v1 produces a 404 that looks like a routing failure when it is really a doubled path segment.

To scope it to a single session rather than your shell profile:

Terminal window
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.usepod.ai/proxy/<TOKEN> \
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=UsePod \
claude

Verify

Section titled “Verify”

Ask the agent anything — a normal reply means the proxy is carrying the session. If you would rather confirm the wiring before launching the agent, the same URL answers curl:

Terminal window
curl -s https://api.usepod.ai/proxy/<TOKEN>/v1/messages \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -d '{"model":"claude-haiku-4-5","max_tokens":32,
       "messages":[{"role":"user","content":"ping"}]}'

Choosing a model

Section titled “Choosing a model”

Claude Code picks its own default and lets you override it with ANTHROPIC_MODEL. Every Claude model in the marketplace is addressable by its plain id:

Terminal window
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL="claude-sonnet-5"

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”

Every request 404s. The base URL almost certainly ends in /v1. The Anthropic surface takes the bare proxy path; only the OpenAI-compatible surface carries the /v1 suffix.

401 despite a valid token. ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is unset or empty. The value is discarded, but the header must be there.

402 with a balance you believe is funded. The balance is per token, and a second token minted by a different device has its own. The dashboard shows which token you are looking at.

Responses stop mid-session. Long agent sessions accumulate context, and context costs money on every turn; check the balance before assuming a fault.