A CLI proxy to run Claude API requests (Anthropic-style) against OpenAI-compatible LLM providers (like OpenRouter), enabling Claude Code to work with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

• Python 3.8+
• uvicorn for ASGI server
• FastAPI, httpx, python-dotenv, pydantic (see pyproject.toml)

git clone https://github.com/nenadilic84/claudex.git
cd claudex
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .
cp .env.example .env  # edit .env to fill in your API settings

Fill in your .env like:

TARGET_API_BASE=https://api.openrouter.ai/v1
TARGET_API_KEY=<your_provider_key>
BIG_MODEL_TARGET=openai/gpt-4.1
SMALL_MODEL_TARGET=openai/gpt-4.1-mini
LOG_LEVEL=INFO

After setup and installing dependencies, you can run the proxy in either of these ways:

# Run as module with environment variables:
python -m claudex.main --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8082 --reload

# Or with command line arguments:
python -m claudex.main --target-api-base https://api.openrouter.ai/v1 --big-model openai/gpt-4.1 --small-model openai/gpt-4.1-mini --log-level INFO

# Or if installed as a script:
claudex --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8082 --target-api-base https://api.openrouter.ai/v1 --big-model openai/gpt-4.1 --small-model openai/gpt-4.1-mini

• --host - Host to bind (default: 0.0.0.0)
• --port - Port to bind (default: 8082)
• --reload - Enable live-reload for development
• --target-api-base - Base URL for target OpenAI-compatible API
• --big-model - Target model for Claude Sonnet/larger models
• --small-model - Target model for Claude Haiku/smaller models
• --log-level - Logging level (DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR)

Note: The API key must still be provided via the TARGET_API_KEY environment variable for security reasons.

uvicorn claudex.proxy:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8082 --reload

In a second terminal, you can now use the Claude CLI tool with this proxy:

ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8082 DISABLE_PROMPT_CACHING=1 claude

This allows you to use Claude Code with any OpenAI-compatible LLM provider, such as:

• OpenRouter
• Together.ai
• Local LLM endpoints
• Any other OpenAI-compatible API

• GET / - Health check endpoint
• POST /v1/messages - Main endpoint that receives Anthropic API requests, converts them to OpenAI format, and returns converted responses

Run tests:

pytest

MIT License - Copyright (c) 2025 nenadilic84