# OpenClaude OpenClaude is an open-source, multi-provider coding-agent CLI that originated as a fork of [[Claude Code]] and has since been substantially modified to remove provider lock-in. It keeps the Claude Code workflow shape (prompts, tools, agents, MCP, slash commands, streaming output) but lets the user point it at OpenAI-compatible APIs, [[Gemini]], GitHub Models, Codex OAuth, [[OpenAI Codex|Codex]], [[Ollama]], Atomic Chat, Bedrock, Vertex, and Foundry as backends. It is an independent community project; not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by [[Anthropic]]. The project ships under MIT license and explicitly notes that "Claude" and "Claude Code" remain Anthropic trademarks. Positioning is essentially "the Claude Code experience without the model lock-in"; the same niche [[OpenCode]] occupies from the SST side and that [[OpenClaw]] occupied earlier as a personal-assistant fork. Compared to [[Aider]], [[Kimi CLI]], [[Gemini CLI]], and [[GitHub Copilot CLI]], OpenClaude's differentiator is heritage; it is the closest user-experience match to Claude Code itself because the codebase started there. ## Key features - **Multi-provider routing**: OpenAI-compatible (OpenAI, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Groq, Mistral, LM Studio), Hicap, Gemini, GitHub Models, Codex OAuth, Codex CLI auth, Ollama, Atomic Chat, Bedrock, Vertex, Foundry. - **Provider profiles**: `/provider` slash command for guided setup and saved profiles; `/onboard-github` for GitHub Models onboarding. - **Agent routing**: per-subagent model assignment via `~/.openclaude.json`; route Explore, Plan, general-purpose, frontend-dev to different backends for cost or capability reasons. - **Tool surface**: Bash, file read/write/edit, grep, glob, agents, tasks, slash commands; same shape as Claude Code. - **[[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] support** for third-party tools. - **Web search and fetch**: free [[DuckDuckGo]] fallback for non-Anthropic models out of the box; optional Firecrawl path via `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY` for JS-rendered pages and a more reliable search API. - **Streaming output and multi-step tool loops** with progress events. - **Image inputs** (URL or base64) for providers that support vision. - **Headless gRPC server** on `localhost:50051` for embedding the agent in CI, custom UIs, or other applications; bidirectional streaming with permission prompts via `action_required` events. Proto file at `src/proto/openclaude.proto` for non-JS clients. - **VS Code extension** bundled in `vscode-extension/openclaude-vscode/` for launch integration and provider-aware control-center UI. ## Install and start ```bash npm install -g @gitlawb/openclaude openclaude ``` Requires `ripgrep` available on `PATH`. Inside the session, `/provider` walks through provider setup. Fastest OpenAI setup: ```bash export CLAUDE_CODE_USE_OPENAI=1 export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-key-here export OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-4o openclaude ``` Fastest local Ollama setup: ```bash export CLAUDE_CODE_USE_OPENAI=1 export OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1 export OPENAI_MODEL=qwen2.5-coder:7b openclaude ``` If [[Ollama]] is installed, `ollama launch openclaude --model <name>` skips the env-var dance and routes all API traffic through the local Ollama instance. ## Source build Built with [[Bun]] and [[TypeScript]]: ```bash bun install bun run build node dist/cli.mjs ``` ## Repository layout - `src/` — core CLI/runtime - `scripts/` — build, verification, maintenance - `docs/` — setup and contributor docs - `python/` — standalone Python helpers - `vscode-extension/openclaude-vscode/` — VS Code extension - `bin/` — CLI launcher entrypoints ## Caveats - Anthropic-specific features may not exist on other providers; tool-call quality depends heavily on the chosen model. - Smaller local models can struggle with long multi-step tool flows. - Some providers cap output tokens lower than the CLI defaults. - DuckDuckGo fallback search scrapes results and may be rate-limited or blocked; Firecrawl is the supported alternative. - `api_key` values stored in `~/.openclaude.json` are plaintext; do not commit. ## References - GitHub: https://github.com/Gitlawb/openclaude - npm package: `@gitlawb/openclaude` - GitLawb mirror: https://gitlawb.com/node/repos/z6MkqDnb/openclaude ## Related - [[Claude Code]] - [[AI Agent Harness]] - [[OpenCode]] - [[OpenClaw]] - [[Aider]] - [[Codex CLI]] - [[OpenAI Codex]] - [[Gemini CLI]] - [[Kimi CLI]] - [[GitHub Copilot CLI]] - [[Cline]] - [[Goose]] - [[Roo Code]] - [[Ollama]] - [[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] - [[AI Agents]] - [[Agentic Engineering]] - [[How coding agents work]] - [[Anthropic]] - [[OpenAI]] - [[Large Language Models (LLMs)]]