How to Use Claude Code for Free with Local AI

Claude Code is a powerful agentic coding tool that can read your codebase, write code, run commands, and reason across files. The catch? It typically requires an Anthropic API key. But there's a way to use it entirely for free — by routing it through a local model.

The Idea#

Claude Code supports custom API endpoints. LM Studio exposes an OpenAI-compatible API at http://localhost:1234. By pointing Claude Code at your local LM Studio instance running a model like Qwen2.5 Coder, you get a capable coding assistant with zero API costs.

Why Qwen Coder?#

Qwen2.5 Coder is one of the best open-source coding models available. It performs surprisingly close to GPT-4 on coding benchmarks and runs comfortably on consumer hardware.

What You Need#

• LM Studio with Qwen2.5 Coder downloaded
• Claude Code installed (npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code)
• A config pointing Claude Code to your local endpoint

Setup#

Full configuration guide with code snippets coming soon.