How to set up Claude Code as your team's shared AI — one API key, everyone saves money

If you're on a small dev team, you've probably had this conversation:

"Should we all buy Claude Pro? That's $20/person/month..."
"Can we just share one account?"
"Anthropic's TOS says no."
"...so we just... don't use it?"

There's a better way. You can give your entire team Claude Code access through a shared API endpoint — each person uses their own Claude Code installation, but all calls route through one cheap subscription.

Here's exactly how to do it.

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The architecture

Developer A → Claude Code → your API endpoint → Anthropic
Developer B → Claude Code → your API endpoint → Anthropic  
Developer C → Claude Code → your API endpoint → Anthropic

One API subscription. Everyone works independently. No shared credentials.

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Step 1: Each developer configures their Claude Code

In each developer's .claude/settings.json:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://simplylouie.com/api",
    "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "your-team-api-key"
  }
}

That's the entire client-side configuration. Claude Code will now route all API calls through your shared endpoint.

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Step 2: Verify it's working

# Quick verification — run this in any project directory
curl https://simplylouie.com/api/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: your-team-api-key" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
    "max_tokens": 100,
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "say hello"}]
  }'

You should see Claude respond. If you do, every developer on your team with the same settings will also work.

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Step 3: Add team-wide CLAUDE.md defaults

For consistent behavior across your team, commit a shared CLAUDE.md to your repo root:

# Team AI Guidelines

## Code style
- Match existing patterns in this codebase
- Never change function signatures without flagging it
- Prefer explicit over implicit

## What to always check
- Are there existing tests? Run them.
- Is there a migrations folder? Check it before touching DB schemas.
- Is there a CHANGELOG? Update it for any user-facing change.

## What never to do
- Don't add dependencies without checking package.json first
- Don't rewrite working code "to make it cleaner"
- Don't commit .env files

## Our stack
- Backend: Node.js + Express
- DB: PostgreSQL with Knex
- Frontend: React 18, no class components
- Tests: Jest + supertest

Now every developer gets the same baseline behavior from Claude Code — the AI knows your stack, your conventions, your rules.

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The math for a 5-person team

Option	Monthly cost
5× Claude Pro	$100/month
5× Claude Pro (annual)	$1,020/year
Shared API endpoint	$2/month
Savings	$98/month

For a team of 10 developers, you're saving $198/month — $2,376/year.

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What about usage limits?

When you route through an API endpoint rather than individual Claude Pro accounts, you get:

• No per-user rate limits — usage pooled across the team
• No conversation history conflicts — each developer is isolated
• Consistent model access — everyone gets the same Claude version
• Usage visibility — you can see aggregate API usage

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Per-project configuration (advanced)

If different projects need different behavior, you can put a .claude/settings.json at the project level that overrides the global one:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://simplylouie.com/api",
    "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "your-team-api-key"
  },
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "Bash(git:*)",
      "Bash(npm:*)",
      "Bash(jest:*)"
    ],
    "deny": [
      "Bash(rm -rf:*)",
      "Bash(curl:*)"
    ]
  }
}

The permissions block controls what Claude Code can and can't run as bash commands. For a production repo, you probably want to deny rm -rf and any curl commands that could exfiltrate data.

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Getting the API key

You can get a shared team API key at simplylouie.com/developers — $2/month for unlimited Claude Sonnet access.

The 7-day free trial means your team can test the whole setup before committing anything.

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What this looks like in practice

Once it's running, your developers don't think about it. They just use Claude Code normally:

# Developer opens their editor, Claude Code is just... there
claude "review this PR and flag any security issues"
claude "write tests for the user authentication module"
claude "explain what this regex does: ^(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*\d).{8,}$"

No login prompts. No subscription management. No "my trial expired" Slack messages.

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Checklist

• [ ] Sign up at simplylouie.com/developers — get your API key
• [ ] Add .claude/settings.json to each developer's global Claude config
• [ ] Commit a shared CLAUDE.md to your main repo
• [ ] Add per-project permission rules if needed
• [ ] Tell your team to unsubscribe from their Claude Pro accounts

Five steps. Team AI setup done.

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SimplyLouie is a Claude API proxy at $2/month — 50% of revenue goes to animal rescue. simplylouie.com/developers