How to use any Ollama AI model with Claude Code
Ollama now has Anthropic like API compatibility which means you can use any models (open source models) that is available in Ollama (both local & cloud) with Claude Code
How to use it?
Just set these env variables and start Claude Code
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama # required but ignored
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=ollama # required but ignored
Then you can start claude like this
claude --model qwen3-coder
Replace qwen3-coder with the model that you want to use.
In case of Ollama cloud based model, you can do like this
claude --model glm-4.7:cloud
Ollama recommends the following models
| Local Models | Cloud Models |
|---|---|
| gpt-oss:20b | glm-4.7:cloud |
| qwen3-coder | minimax-m2.1:cloud |
How does it work?
Under the hood, they parse and transform the API schema so that it is compatable with Anthropic API.
They’re following Open Response API standard.
You can even use this with Anthropic SDK as well
import anthropic
client = anthropic.Anthropic(
base_url='http://localhost:11434',
api_key='ollama',
)
message = client.messages.create(
model='qwen3-coder',
tools=[
{
'name': 'get_weather',
'description': 'Get the current weather in a location',
'input_schema': {
'type': 'object',
'properties': {
'location': {
'type': 'string',
'description': 'The city and state, e.g. San Francisco, CA'
}
},
'required': ['location']
}
}
],
messages=[{'role': 'user', 'content': "What's the weather in San Francisco?"}]
)
for block in message.content:
if block.type == 'tool_use':
print(f'Tool: {block.name}')
print(f'Input: {block.input}')
Reference
https://ollama.com/blog/claude https://x.com/ollama/status/2012434308091224534
#Ollama #Claude-Code #Open-Responses
