Fully Free Claude Code: This SIMPLE SETUP MAKES Claude Code FULLY FREE!

A project called 'free-claude-code' lets you use the Claude Code CLI and VS Code extension without paying for Anthropic API usage by routing requests through a local proxy to alternative backends. Supported backends include NVIDIA NIM (recommended free option at 40 req/min), Open Router (many free models), DeepSeek, LM Studio, Llama.cpp, and Ollama. Setup involves installing the proxy, configuring a .env file with your chosen provider and API key, starting the proxy server on port 8082, and pointing Claude Code's ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL to it. Advanced features include per-model mapping (routing Opus/Sonnet/Haiku tiers to different providers), smart rate limiting with exponential backoff, a model picker CLI, VS Code and JetBrains IDE integration, and Discord/Telegram bot support for remote agentic coding sessions with voice note transcription. The project has over 14,000 GitHub stars. Key caveat: output quality depends entirely on the backend model chosen, not Claude itself.