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Using z.ai with Claude Code

Why

z.ai provides GLM models as a drop-in replacement for Anthropic's API in Claude Code. Much cheaper: $6-60/month vs $100-200/month for Claude Max.

Setup

1. Get API Key

Go to https://z.ai/model-api
Register/login
Create API key at https://z.ai/manage-apikey/apikey-list

2. Configure Claude Code

Edit ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
    "env": {
        "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "your_zai_api_key_here",
        "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://api.z.ai/api/anthropic",
        "API_TIMEOUT_MS": "3000000"
    }
}

3. Open new terminal, run `claude`

That's it.

Switching Back to Anthropic

Remove or comment out the env block in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
}

Or just delete the three env vars. Open new terminal.

Optional: Model Mapping

To control which GLM model is used for each tier, add to the env block:

{
    "env": {
        "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "your_zai_api_key_here",
        "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://api.z.ai/api/anthropic",
        "API_TIMEOUT_MS": "3000000",
        "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL": "glm-4.7",
        "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL": "glm-4.7",
        "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "glm-4.5-air"
    }
}

Notes

GLM-4.7 is the current best model on z.ai
glm-4.5-air is lighter/faster for haiku tasks
MCP tools, skills, and all Claude Code features work normally
If something breaks, just revert settings.json and restart

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