Originally published at recca0120.github.io

Claude Code's developer experience is excellent, but the API costs add up fast. free-claude-code is an open-source proxy that lets you keep using Claude Code's CLI, VS Code extension, and JetBrains integration while routing the underlying API calls to free-tier cloud APIs or self-hosted local models.

How It Works

Every Claude Code operation goes through the Anthropic API. This proxy sits in between:

Claude Code CLI / VS Code / JetBrains ↓ free-claude-code proxy ↓ NVIDIA NIM / OpenRouter / Ollama / ...

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The proxy exposes Anthropic-compatible endpoints ( /v1/messages , /v1/models , etc.), translates incoming requests to each provider's format, then translates the responses back to Anthropic's format.…