Claude Code can talk to LM Studio via the Anthropic-compatible POST /v1/messages endpoint. See: Anthropic-compatible Messages endpoint.

Claude Code configured to use LM Studio via the Anthropic-compatible API

Pro Tip

Have a powerful LLM rig? Use LM Link to run Claude Code from your laptop while the model runs on your rig.

Make sure LM Studio is running as a server (default port 1234).

You can start it from the app, or from the terminal with lms:

lms server start --port 1234

Set these environment variables so the claude CLI points to your local LM Studio:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:1234
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=lmstudio

Notes:

If Require Authentication is enabled, set ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN to your LM Studio API token. To learn more, see: Authentication.

claude --model openai/gpt-oss-20b

Pro Tip

Use a model (and server/model settings) with more than ~25k context length. Tools like Claude Code can consume a lot of context.

If you turned on "Require Authentication" in LM Studio, create an API token and set:

export LM_API_TOKEN=<LMSTUDIO_TOKEN>
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=$LM_API_TOKEN

When Require Authentication is enabled, LM Studio accepts both x-api-key and Authorization: Bearer <token>.

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