switcher

A CLI tool to launch Claude Code with different AI providers.

Why?

Claude Code is an excellent coding agent, but it's locked to Anthropic's API by default. Several providers now offer OpenAI-compatible endpoints that can work as drop-in replacements — Moonshot, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, ZhipuAI, MiniMax, and others.

Switching between them manually means juggling environment variables every time: ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL, ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, model flags... It gets old fast.

switcher wraps that into a single command. You configure your providers once and launch Claude Code pointing at any of them.

Inspiration

This project was inspired by the growing ecosystem of AI providers offering API compatibility and the friction of managing multiple configurations by hand. Instead of shell aliases or .env files scattered around, switcher gives you a dedicated tool to manage and switch providers cleanly.

Install

Quick install (macOS / Linux)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lucas-stellet/switcher/main/install.sh | sh

Quick install (Windows PowerShell)

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lucas-stellet/switcher/main/install.ps1 | iex

Homebrew

brew install lucas-stellet/switcher/switcher

From source

go install github.com/lucas-stellet/switcher@latest

Manual build

git clone https://github.com/lucas-stellet/switcher.git
cd switcher
make install   # installs to ~/.local/bin (no sudo required)

Usage

switcher <provider> claude [args...]

On first run, switcher creates ~/.switcher.json with a set of pre-configured providers (API keys left blank for you to fill in).

Initialize config

switcher init

Creates ~/.switcher.json with all default providers. Safe to run if the file already exists — it won't overwrite your config.

Launch Claude with a provider

switcher minimax claude
switcher moonshot claude
switcher deepseek claude -p "explain this function"
switcher openrouter claude --dangerously-skip-permissions

Run arbitrary commands with provider env vars

switcher run moonshot -- env | grep ANTHROPIC
switcher run deepseek -- ./test-e2e.sh

The -- separator is required. Everything after -- is passed to the command. This is useful for running E2E test scripts that need specific ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN settings.

List providers

switcher list

  deepseek       - DeepSeek [deepseek-chat]  (no api key)
  minimax        - MiniMax [MiniMax-M2.5]  (no api key)
  moonshot       - Moonshot AI [kimi-k2.5]  (no api key)
  openrouter     - OpenRouter  (no api key)
  zai            - ZhipuAI [glm-5]  (no api key)

Add a provider

switcher add my-provider

Prompts interactively for description, base URL, API key, and model.

Edit a provider

switcher edit moonshot

Opens the provider config in $EDITOR as JSON.

Remove a provider

switcher rm my-provider

Configuration

The config file lives at ~/.switcher.json. You can edit it directly or use the CLI commands. Each provider has:

Field	Description
description	Human-readable name
base_url	API endpoint (OpenAI-compatible)
api_key	Your API key for the provider
model	Default model to use
env	Extra environment variables to set

Note: Variables in env are applied after ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN. This means if you set either of these inside env, they will override the corresponding base_url and api_key fields. If a provider's default URL has changed, PRs are welcome.

Example:

{
  "providers": {
    "moonshot": {
      "description": "Moonshot AI",
      "base_url": "https://api.moonshot.ai/anthropic",
      "api_key": "sk-...",
      "model": "kimi-k2.5",
      "env": {
        "CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC": "1",
        "ANTHROPIC_SMALL_FAST_MODEL": "kimi-k2.5",
        "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL": "kimi-k2.5",
        "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL": "kimi-k2.5",
        "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "kimi-k2.5",
        "CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL": "kimi-k2.5"
      }
    }
  }
}

Default providers

Name	Provider	Model	Notes
moonshot	Moonshot AI	kimi-k2.5	Anthropic-compatible API, includes subagent and model env vars
zai	ZhipuAI (Z.AI)	glm-5	744B MoE, 40B active params, open-source, trained on Huawei Ascend
openrouter	OpenRouter	(user's choice)	Gateway to 400+ models from all major providers
deepseek	DeepSeek	deepseek-chat	Points to latest stable (currently V4), strong reasoning & coding
minimax	MiniMax	MiniMax-M2.5	Anthropic-compatible API, includes model env vars for all tiers

How it works

switcher finds the claude binary in your PATH, sets ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN to point at your chosen provider, and launches Claude. On macOS/Linux it calls exec — replacing itself with the Claude process with zero overhead. On Windows it runs Claude as a subprocess.

License

MIT