Run Claude Opus 4.6 as a Local OpenAI-Compatible API — for Free (with Max/Pro Subscription)

#claude #ai #selfhosted #opensource

openclaw-claude-proxy (OCP)

OpenAI-compatible local proxy for Claude CLI — use Opus 4.6 in Cursor, Cline, Open WebUI and more, with zero API cost.

What is it?

openclaw-claude-proxy (OCP) wraps the claude CLI in an OpenAI-compatible HTTP server. Any tool that speaks OpenAI API can talk to Claude — without paying per token.

Why it matters

	Claude API	OCP (this project)
Cost	Pay per token	$0 (included in Max/Pro)
Models	All	claude-opus-4-6, sonnet, haiku
OpenAI compatible	Yes	Yes
Multi-user	No	Yes — share one subscription
Setup	API key	`npm install -g openclaw-claude-proxy`

Quick Start

npm install -g openclaw-claude-proxy
ocp-server

Then point any OpenAI client at http://localhost:9090.

Authentication

For shared/exposed deployments, set PROXY_API_KEY to require Bearer token auth:

PROXY_API_KEY=my-secret ocp-server

Works with

Cursor — set base URL to http://localhost:9090, model to claude-opus-4-6
Cline (VS Code) — OpenAI provider, same base URL
Open WebUI — add as OpenAI connection
LangChain / LlamaIndex — set openai_api_base
Any OpenAI SDK — just change base_url

Honest tradeoffs

Uses CLI pool internally → requests execute sequentially per worker (not pure parallel)
Requires active Claude Max or Pro subscription on the machine
Pool workers restart on crash with backoff