Power Up Your Claude Code

So, you've been hearing the buzz about Z.ai's new powerhouse model, GLM-4.5, and you're probably also a fan of Anthropic's slick in-terminal coding assistant, Claude Code. What if I told you that you can combine these two for a seriously upgraded coding experience? Well, you absolutely can, and it's not even that complicated. Turns out, GLM-4.5 was pretty much designed to be plugged into agentic tools like Claude Code.

Honestly, this is one of those "best of both worlds" situations. You get the slick, in-terminal, whole-codebase-aware experience of Claude Code, but powered by the massive reasoning and coding capabilities of GLM-4.5. It's like dropping a new engine into your favorite car.

I've been digging into this quite a bit, and I've found a few different ways to make this happen. We'll walk through them step-by-step, from the super simple to the more advanced. Let's get into it.

First, a Quick Lowdown: Why This Combo is a Big Deal

Before we get our hands dirty, let's just quickly appreciate why this is so cool.

GLM-4.5: This isn't just another LLM. It's a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model with a massive 355 billion parameters. It's been specifically optimized for agentic tasks, coding, and complex reasoning. One of its standout features is a "thinking mode" that it can toggle for more complex problems, which is perfect for a coding assistant. Plus, it's released under a permissive MIT license, which is a huge win for the open-source community.
Claude Code: This thing is a joy to use if you live in your terminal. It's not just a chatbot in a different window; it directly interacts with your codebase, can edit files, run commands, and even handle Git operations. It's built to be an agentic tool, meaning it can take a high-level command and figure out the steps to get it done.

The official GLM-4.5 documentation actually mentions that it can be seamlessly combined with Claude Code. That's a pretty strong green light. So, let's look at how you can actually do it.

Method 1: The Straight-Up Swap (Using Environment Variables)

This is by far the most direct and simple way to get started. The basic idea is to tell Claude Code to send its API requests to the GLM-4.5 API endpoint instead of Anthropic's. You do this by setting a couple of environment variables in your terminal.

This method essentially tricks Claude Code into using a different "brain." It's surprisingly effective.

Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Get Your GLM-4.5 API Key

First things first, you need an API key from the correct provider.

Head over to the Wisdom Gate portal. You'll likely need to sign up for an account.
Navigate to the API Keys section in your account dashboard.
Create a new API key and give it a memorable name (like "claude-code-integration").
Copy this key somewhere safe. You'll need it in a second.

Step 2: Set the Environment Variables

Now, open up your terminal. Before you run Claude Code, you'll need to export two environment variables. These variables will tell Claude Code where to send its requests and what credentials to use.

For macOS or Linux, you'll use the export command:

Bash

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="YOUR_GLM_4.5_API_KEY_HERE" export ANTHROPIC_API_URL="https://wisdom-gate.juheapi.com/v1/wisdom-ai-glm4.5"

For Windows (using Command Prompt), the command is set:

Bash

set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="YOUR_GLM_4.5_API_KEY_HERE" set ANTHROPIC_API_URL="https://wisdom-gate.juheapi.com/v1/wisdom-ai-glm4.5"

For Windows (using PowerShell), you'll use $env::

PowerShell

$env:ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="YOUR_GLM_4.5_API_KEY_HERE" $env:ANTHROPIC_API_URL="https://wisdom-gate.juheapi.com/v1/wisdom-ai-glm4.5"

What this does: You're overriding Claude Code's default settings. It will now use your GLM-4.5 key and send its requests to the Wisdom Gate API endpoint instead of the standard Anthropic one.

Step 3: Run Claude Code

Now, in the same terminal session, simply start Claude Code as you normally would.

Bash

claude-code

That's it! Claude Code will now be powered by GLM-4.5.

Pro-Tip: To make this permanent, add the export lines to your shell's configuration file (e.g., ~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.bash_profile). This way, you won't have to set them every time you open a new terminal.

Method 2: The Clean Method (Using a Configuration File)

Setting environment variables is great for a quick test, but for a more permanent and cleaner setup, editing Claude Code's configuration file is the way to go.

Step 1: Find or Create the Config File

Most command-line tools look for a config file in a standard location. For Claude Code, it's likely located at ~/.config/claude-code/config.yaml. If the directory or file doesn't exist, go ahead and create it.

Step 2: Edit the Configuration

Open the config.yaml file in your favorite text editor and add the following lines. This structure explicitly tells the tool to use a custom, Anthropic-compatible API.

YAML

``# ~/.config/claude-code/config.yaml model: # Use a custom provider that's compatible with the Anthropic API format provider: anthropic_compatible # Your API key from Wisdom Gate api_key: "YOUR_GLM_4.5_API_KEY_HERE" # The custom endpoint for the GLM-4.5 model base_url: https://wisdom-gate.juheapi.com/v1/wisdom-ai-glm4.5

This approach is much cleaner because your API key isn't floating around in your shell history or environment variables.

Step 3: Verify the Setup

Run Claude Code. To double-check that it's using the new model, you can ask it directly: "What model are you?". You should get a response indicating it's a large language model, and you can verify its behavior on a complex coding task.

What to Expect: Performance and Quirks

Switching the underlying model is a major change, so here are a few things to keep in mind:

Reasoning Power: Expect a noticeable improvement in complex problem-solving. Try giving it a high-level task like "Refactor this messy script into a class-based structure and add unit tests." GLM-4.5's agentic optimization should shine here.
Potential for Delay: GLM-4.5's "thinking mode" might kick in for very difficult requests. This could mean a slightly longer wait for a response, but the output is often far more detailed and accurate.
API Compatibility: This works because the GLM-4.5 API is designed to be compatible with the API structure that tools like Claude Code expect. However, some highly specific, non-standard features might behave differently. The core functionality—reading/writing files, running commands, and generating code—should be seamless.

Final Thoughts

Combining the user-friendly, deeply integrated terminal experience of Claude Code with the raw intellectual horsepower of GLM-4.5 is a genuine game-changer. It elevates a helpful assistant into a true programming partner. For a minimal amount of setup, you get a significant upgrade to your development workflow.

Give it a try—it's one of the easiest and most impactful tweaks you can make to your coding environment this year. Happy coding!

Power Up Your Claude Code