How to Use Claude Code for Free: A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Your AI Coding Agent

If you’ve been following the AI space, you know that Claude Code is one of the most powerful terminal-based coding agents available today. However, high subscription costs can be a barrier for many developers.

What if you could harness the power of Claude’s reasoning for free?

Enter Free-Claude-Code, an open-source project that acts as an Anthropic-compatible proxy, allowing you to use Claude Code (and other tools) via free or low-cost backends like NVIDIA NIM, OpenRouter, and DeepSeek.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to set up this repository and build a real-world application without spending a dime.

What is Free-Claude-Code?

Created by developer Alishahryar1, this repository is a bridge. It intercepts requests from the Claude Code CLI or VSCode extensions and reroutes them to alternative providers.

Supported Providers include:

• NVIDIA NIM (Offers a generous free tier for developers)
• OpenRouter
• DeepSeek
• Local LLMs via Ollama or LM Studio

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure you have the following installed on your machine:

1. Git
2. Python 3.14 (recommended for best compatibility)
3. Node.js/NPM (for running Claude Code)
4. A terminal of your choice (iTerm2, VS Code Terminal, etc.)

Step 1: Clone the Repository

First, create a dedicated folder for your project. Open your terminal and run:

git clone https://github.com/Alishahryar1/free-claude-code.git
cd free-claude-code

Open this folder in your favorite IDE (like Visual Studio Code).

Step 2: Configure Your Environment

The project relies on environment variables to know which AI provider to use.

1. Locate the .env.example file in the root directory.
2. Create a copy and rename it to .env.
3. In the .env file, you will see sections for different providers. For this guide, we are using NVIDIA NIM.

Step 3: Get Your Free API Key

To get your free NVIDIA NIM key:

1. Visit build.nvidia.com.
2. Sign in or create a developer account.
3. Search for a model (like Llama-3 or Mistral) and click Generate API Key.
4. Copy the key and paste it into your .env file under NVIDIA_NIM_API_KEY.

Step 4: Install Dependencies with uv

The creator recommends using uv, an extremely fast Python package manager.

To install uv:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Update uv and install Python 3.14:

uv self update
uv python install 3.14

Step 5: Start the Proxy Server

Now, we need to run the proxy that will "trick" Claude Code into thinking it’s talking to Anthropic’s servers. Run the following command in your terminal:

uv run svicorp serverapp --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8082

Your server is now running at http://localhost:8082.

Step 6: Connecting Claude Code

Once your proxy server is running, you can launch Claude Code. If you haven't installed it yet, you can do so via NPM:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

To run Claude Code using your new free proxy, you need to point the API URL to your local server:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="http://localhost:8082"
claude

You can also run it directly from your terminal using the command:

Case Study: Building a To-Do App

To test the setup, we gave the agent a simple prompt:

"Create a web app to help me manage my to-do list using Vite. Start by creating a tasks.md file and put in a checklist of what is to be done."

Despite being a "free" setup, the agent was able to:

1. Initialize a new Vite project.
2. Create the necessary file structure.
3. Write the logic for adding, deleting, and checking off tasks.
4. Style the app with a modern CSS layout.

The final result was a fully functional, sleek To-Do application running on localhost:5173.

Conclusion

The Free-Claude-Code project is a game-changer for developers who want to experiment with high-end AI agents without the high-end price tag. By leveraging providers like NVIDIA NIM, you can build complex applications using only the power of your terminal.

Support the Creator: If you found this helpful, please head over to the GitHub repository and give it a star. The creator has been developing this since 2012 and deserves the community's support!

Please visit my YouTube channel and give it a sub.

Happy coding!