Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop has two relevant paths:

Claude Desktop area	ModRouter endpoint
Code tab / Claude Code runtime	`/anthropic`
Chat tab MCP tools	`/mcp`

Code Tab

Add ModRouter’s Anthropic-compatible endpoint to the Claude Code settings used by Claude Desktop:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://api.modrouter.online/anthropic",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "${MODROUTER_API_KEY}"
  }
}

If your Claude Code runtime expects ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, use that variable instead of ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN.

Model Routing

Use ModRouter routing rules to map Claude model names to the provider/model you want, or pin model variables if your Claude Code version supports them:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://api.modrouter.online/anthropic",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "${MODROUTER_API_KEY}",
    "ANTHROPIC_MODEL": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5",
    "ANTHROPIC_SMALL_FAST_MODEL": "anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5"
  }
}

Non-Anthropic models can work through ModRouter when they support Anthropic-style tool-calling behavior well enough for Claude Code’s workflow.

Chat Tab MCP

Connect Claude Desktop’s MCP config to ModRouter:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "modrouter": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://api.modrouter.online/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${MODROUTER_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

The Chat tab still sends normal chat traffic to Claude. The MCP entry only exposes ModRouter-managed tools to Claude Desktop.

CLI Agents & Editors

MCP Gateway

Code Tab

Model Routing

Chat Tab MCP

​Code Tab

​Model Routing

​Chat Tab MCP

Code Tab

Model Routing

Chat Tab MCP