About this project

claude-desktop-gateway is a lightweight proxy program that enables Claude Desktop to access AI models from non-Anthropic providers such as OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, and others. It works by translating Anthropic API requests into OpenAI-compatible formats and vice versa, allowing seamless integration without modifying Claude Desktop’s core behavior. The gateway is configured entirely through a single YAML file (models.yaml), where users define providers and their associated models. Each provider can be enabled or disabled, and API keys are loaded from environment variables, an auth.json file, or embedded directly in the config (with security warnings). Models are mapped with aliases starting with 'claude-' to avoid conflicts with official Anthropic models. It supports text, image input, tool calls, reasoning modes, and streaming responses. The gateway runs as a headless service on Linux/WSL or as a system-tray application on Windows, listening on port 3458 by default. Users must enable Developer Mode in Claude Desktop and configure it to point to the local gateway URL. No runtime dependencies are required beyond Go for building. The program logs requests when GATEWAY_LOG is set, aiding troubleshooting. Restarting the gateway and Claude Desktop is necessary after config changes to refresh model listings. The gateway does not validate the Gateway API key — any value (e.g., 'x') suffices for authentication within Claude Desktop.