DEV Community: Mike Buyco

Using Claude Code with OpenRouter via `claude-code-router` on Linux

Mike Buyco — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:13:52 +0000

Introduction

Claude Code is Anthropic's powerful command-line coding assistant that brings AI directly into your terminal, while OpenRouter is an API aggregator that provides access to multiple AI models through a unified interface. The claude-code-router package bridges these two tools, allowing you to route Claude Code requests through OpenRouter instead of Anthropic's direct API.

This guide covers installation and configuration on Linux systems only.

Prerequisites

Before beginning, ensure your system meets these requirements:

System Requirements

OS: Any modern Linux distribution (Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 11+, Fedora 36+, Arch Linux, etc.)
Node.js: Version 18.0.0 or higher
npm: Version 8.0.0 or higher
Git: For cloning repositories if needed

Verify Your Setup

# Check Node.js version
node --version

# Check npm version
npm --version

# Check Git version
git --version

If Node.js is not installed or outdated, install it using your distribution's package manager or NodeSource:

# Ubuntu/Debian - Using NodeSource
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

# Fedora
sudo dnf install nodejs npm

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S nodejs npm

Obtaining an OpenRouter API Key

Navigate to openrouter.ai
Create an account or sign in
Go to Keys in your account dashboard
Click Create Key
Copy the generated API key and store it securely

Installing `claude-code-router`

The claude-code-router package should be installed globally alongside Anthropic's official CLI tool.

npm install -g claude-code-router @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Configuration

Method 1: Environment Variables

Create or edit your shell configuration file:

# For Bash
nano ~/.bashrc

# For Zsh
nano ~/.zshrc

Add the following lines:

# Claude Code Router Configuration
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="your-openrouter-api-key-here"
export CLAUDE_CODE_ROUTER_MODEL="anthropic/claude-3.7-sonnet"

Apply the changes:

# For Bash
source ~/.bashrc

# For Zsh
source ~/.zshrc

Method 2: Configuration File

Alternatively, create a configuration file in your home directory:

mkdir -p ~/.claude-code-router
nano ~/.claude-code-router/config.json

Add your configuration (updated with the correct Claude 3.7 model string):

{
  "apiKey": "your-openrouter-api-key-here",
  "model": "anthropic/claude-3.7-sonnet",
  "baseUrl": "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
  "maxTokens": 8192,
  "temperature": 0.7
}

Secure Your API Key

If you prefer using an environment file over a JSON config, ensure you lock down the file permissions so other users on the Linux system cannot read your API key:

# Create a secure environment file
touch ~/.claude-code-router/.env
chmod 600 ~/.claude-code-router/.env
nano ~/.claude-code-router/.env

Add the key inside the file:

OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-your-actual-key-here

Token Cost Optimization & Prompt Caching

One of the primary benefits of routing Claude Code through OpenRouter is natively leveraging Prompt Caching to heavily optimize your API costs.

When working in large codebases, Claude Code sends significant contextual data (file structures, previous messages, and active file contents) with every single request. OpenRouter automatically supports Anthropic's prompt caching functionality:

Initial Requests: Standard input token pricing applies as the context is written to the cache.
Subsequent Requests: As long as your prompt prefix remains identical (within the 5-minute cache TTL), you receive up to a 90% discount on cached input tokens.

No extra configuration is required in claude-code-router to enable this feature—OpenRouter handles the upstream caching headers automatically when translating requests to Anthropic's backend.

Usage

Configure Claude Code to point to the local proxy, then initialize the router:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="http://localhost:8080"
ccr code

Configure LLM Models

If you want to quickly switch models without editing config files manually:

ccr ui

Note: This command redirects to a local web UI to configure your preferred OpenRouter models.

Check OpenRouter's model list for the most current routing options and model strings.

Conclusion

The claude-code-router package provides a seamless way to use Claude Code through OpenRouter on Linux, giving you absolute flexibility in model selection while drastically cutting costs via prompt caching. By following this guide, you now have a secure, system-integrated proxy bridging Claude Code with OpenRouter's API infrastructure.

For additional help, consult the package's documentation on npm or GitHub, and periodically check OpenRouter's documentation for API changes or new model additions.

Building a Lua docker environment

Mike Buyco — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 08:48:14 +0000

Intro

I have a keen interest in containerization, a practice that has significantly streamlined my development workflow. Reflecting on my early days in programming around 2011-2012, I recall encountering a common issue when setting up local development environments. Specifically, during the installation of WAMP, I faced an error indicating that port 3306 (MySQL) was already in use. Upon investigation, I discovered that a previous installation of MySQL for a school project was the culprit, highlighting the challenges of managing dependencies and conflicting software configurations.

Motivation

Currently, I am embarking on a journey to learn Lua scripting to complement my son's endeavors in 3D modeling within the Roblox platform. This motivation stems from a desire to actively engage and support his interests, although finding the time amidst other responsibilities remains a challenge. Nevertheless, I am enthusiastic about delving into Lua scripting to enhance our collaborative projects.

Installation

To facilitate my exploration of Lua, I adopt a pragmatic approach by leveraging containerization with Docker to create a dedicated development environment. This method ensures isolation from existing system dependencies and simplifies setup and management.

First, let's build the project structure:

mkdir ~/learn-lua
cd ~/learn-lua

Then, create a Dockerfile and our main.lua script:

touch Dockerfile
touch main.lua

Dockerfile:

# Use a base image with Lua installed
FROM alpine:latest

# Install Lua and LuaRocks
RUN apk --update add lua5.3 lua5.3-dev luarocks5.3

# Optionally, you can install additional Lua packages using LuaRocks
# For example, to install LuaSocket:
# RUN luarocks-5.3 install luasocket

# Set the working directory
WORKDIR /app

# Copy your Lua scripts into the container
COPY . .

# Set the command to run your Lua script when the container starts
CMD ["lua5.3", "main.lua"]

main.lua:

print("Hello, Lua!")

Now to run the lua script:

docker build -t game-lua .
docker run -it --rm game-lua

Time to learn more lua! I will update again soon :D

Creating a simple CLI note app using a shell alias

Mike Buyco — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 14:11:33 +0000

Overview

I've been using the terminal for my work as a software engineer for several years now and really love the idea of doing most of my tasks in the terminal. I mainly use vim as my IDE and have spent lots of time configuring it to my work style and to improve my productivity over the years.

Don't get me wrong, I love tools like VSCode (especially the web version) and I started out using text editors like Notepad++ and Sublime Text 2. But when I learned how to use vim and configure it to become a full-fledged IDE for everyday use, I fell in love with it. Back then I was really looking into how I can write code with minimal overhead as possible.

Some might say, I'm an old school kind of guy and I'd happily take it as a compliment!

Enough with the backstory, let's see how we can take note-taking capabilities into the terminal...

Prerequisites

Vim 8+ or Neovim 0.5+
Unix shell

Creating an alias

If you're using bash, add this line to your .bashrc file:

# Quickly create a note file for today
NOTES_FILENAME="notes-$(date +%Y%m%d).txt"
alias notes="mkdir ~/notes &> /dev/null; touch ~/notes/$NOTES_FILENAME; cd ~/notes; vim ~/notes/$NOTES_FILENAME"

Let's explain the script above...

First off, we create a NOTES_FILENAME variable with the current date formatted into the filename. So for example, today is October 10, 2022, then the file notes-20221010.txt would be created.

Second, we pass that variable to the alias notes= declaration. To learn more about aliases, check out this article.

The alias notes= declaration is like a shortcut for a shell command. So instead of running the actual commands, you save it into a command named notes. In this case, this command does 4 things:

It creates a folder named notes, into the current user's home directory (~/notes)
It creates a file with the name based on the NOTES_FILENAME variable we created earlier.
It cds into the ~/notes directory.
Runs the vim text editor for the file we created.

Notes environment

Now we can access our notes by just running the notes command in the terminal.

If you have configured vim to have a fuzzy search for project files or live grepping action, you should be able to search through your notes. And given the date format we mentioned earlier, you can search by file for a specific date. Simple enough yeah? LGTM!

Conclusion

The steps we did above is a very simple example of how we can quickly create notes in the terminal and focus on writing what's on our mind fast without leaving the terminal. If you're like me and you mostly work on the terminal and use vim as your text editor, this is a very handy tool, simple and practical.

Let me know your thoughts about this. Cheers!

DEV Community: Mike Buyco

Using Claude Code with OpenRouter via `claude-code-router` on Linux

Introduction

Prerequisites

System Requirements

Verify Your Setup

Obtaining an OpenRouter API Key

Installing claude-code-router

Configuration

Method 1: Environment Variables

Method 2: Configuration File

Secure Your API Key

Token Cost Optimization & Prompt Caching

Usage

Configure LLM Models

Conclusion

Building a Lua docker environment

Intro

Motivation

Installation

Creating a simple CLI note app using a shell alias

Overview

Prerequisites

Creating an alias

Notes environment

Conclusion

Installing `claude-code-router`