Configuration overview

Configure providers and API keys so Clother can launch Claude Code against any backend.

Clother needs two things configured for each cloud provider:

1. Provider settings — which endpoint and model to use (stored in config.json)
2. Secrets — the API key for that provider (stored in secrets.env, chmod 600)

Local providers (Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp) and the native Anthropic provider require neither.

Interactive configuration

Run clother config at any time to configure providers interactively.

# Configure all providers — presents a numbered menu
clother config

# Configure a specific provider directly
clother config zai
clother config minimax
clother config openrouter
clother config custom

When you run clother config [provider], Clother will:

1. Prompt for an API key

   If the provider requires a secret, you are prompted for the API key. Press Enter to keep the existing value.

2. Prompt for a model

   If the provider has model choices, you are shown a numbered list and can type a number or a model ID. Press Enter to accept the default.

3. Save and sync

   Clother writes config.json and secrets.env, then re-synchronizes the installed launcher symlinks.

Listing configured profiles

clother list

Prints every provider profile Clother knows about, including any OpenRouter aliases and custom providers you have added.

Inspecting a provider

clother info <provider>

Shows the resolved configuration for a provider — the base URL, the active model (after any override), and whether an API key is set.

clother info zai
clother info ollama
clother info alibaba

Configuration file locations

Clother follows XDG base directory conventions on Linux and the equivalent on macOS.

File	Default path	Override
Provider config	~/.config/clother/config.json	CLOTHER_CONFIG_DIR
API keys	~/.local/share/clother/secrets.env	CLOTHER_DATA_DIR
Launcher manifest	~/.local/share/clother/launchers.json	CLOTHER_DATA_DIR
Update cache	~/.cache/clother/update.json	CLOTHER_CACHE_DIR

You can override any directory with the corresponding environment variable or with XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, or XDG_CACHE_HOME.

How Clother passes credentials to Claude

At runtime, Clother resolves the selected provider profile and sets two environment variables before launching the real Claude binary:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://api.z.ai/api/anthropic"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="$ZAI_API_KEY"
exec /path/to/claude "$@"

ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL points Claude at the provider’s API endpoint. ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN carries the API key. These variables are set in the subprocess environment only — they are not written to your shell profile.

For the native Anthropic provider (clother-native), neither variable is set. Claude uses your existing subscription credentials directly.