Claude Desktop and Claude Code with the Langfuse AI Gateway

Create a gateway API key

Create a gateway API key under Organization settings → AI Gateway → Gateway keys. See API keys.

Connect to the gateway

Open Developer → Configure Third-Party Inference. If the Developer menu is unavailable, open Help → Troubleshooting and enable Developer Mode. Then, under Connection:

• Set Inference provider to Gateway.
• Set Gateway base URL to https://gateway.cloud.langfuse.com/anthropic. Do not add /v1; Claude Desktop appends it.
• Set Credential kind to Static API key, enter your Langfuse gateway key under Gateway API key, and select Bearer as the Gateway auth scheme.

Set capabilities

Under Capabilities:

• Under General restrictions, we recommend adding * to Allowed egress hosts. Otherwise, Claude can't reach websites or services outside the gateway, such as GitHub, and it won't ask you for permission.
• Optional: gateway mode uses a separate profile. To keep your existing claude.ai chats and sessions, turn on Claude.ai data import. After restarting, use Settings → Import & export. See Import and export.

Save and restart

Select Apply Changes, then select Save & Restart. Start a new session so that the egress settings apply. For more information about these settings, see the Claude Desktop third-party inference guide.

Verify

Test the connection in Developer → Configure Third-Party Inference, or send a message in a new session. If Claude replies, it runs through the gateway.

Create a gateway API key

Create a gateway API key under Organization settings → AI Gateway → Gateway keys. See API keys.

Log out of Claude

Remove existing subscription credentials:

claude /logout

An existing Claude login can send both Authorization and x-api-key credentials and cause 401 Conflicting gateway credentials in the Authorization and x-api-key headers.

Point Claude Code at the gateway

Set the gateway variables in your shell:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://gateway.cloud.langfuse.com/anthropic"   # no /v1: Claude Code appends /v1/messages
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="<your-gateway-key>"                          # sent as Authorization: Bearer
unset ANTHROPIC_API_KEY                                                    # a different value here causes a 401
export CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY=1                        # optional: /model lists gateway models
export CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC=1                          # optional
export ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS=$'langfuse-tags: claude-code,<team>\nlangfuse-environment: local\nlangfuse-metadata: repo:<repo>'   # optional
claude

To keep the setup across sessions, add the export lines to ~/.zshrc. If ~/.zshrc also sets ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, remove that line.

Alternatively, use ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://gateway.cloud.langfuse.com/anthropic",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "<your-gateway-key>",
    "CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY": "1",
    "ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS": "langfuse-tags: claude-code\nlangfuse-environment: local"
  }
}

• ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS takes newline-separated Name: value pairs. See request headers.
• Pick models with --model or /model, using IDs from /models. Bare claude-… IDs and <credential>:<model> IDs both work, see model IDs.
• MCP servers configured locally through the CLI remain available because Claude Code stores them in .claude.json.

Verify

Run a prompt:

claude -p "Reply with: hello gateway"

If Claude Code replies, it runs through the gateway.