Opencc — Development skill for Claude Code

opencc

Lets you use [Claude Code](https://code.claude.com) for free (or cheap) by connecting it to any **free or paid OpenAI-compatible API** — OpenRouter, a local model, whatever — instead of paying for Anthropic's own API.

It works by running a tiny local server that sits between Claude Code and your chosen AI provider, translating the conversation between them. Claude Code doesn't know the difference.

Why this exists

There are already a bunch of proxies out there that do basically this same thing. Most of them do *way* too much: dozens of supported providers, admin dashboards, multiple coding agents, messaging bot integrations, desktop apps with tray icons — entire platforms, when all I actually wanted was one small thing. I don't need 99 providers to use Claude Code for free. I just wanted something simple that does exactly this, one job, and is easy enough to set up that it takes a minute or two, not an afternoon of reading docs. That's what opencc is — nothing more.

How it works, step by step

1. Clone it

git clone https://github.com/p32929/opencc.git
cd opencc

2. Run it once to install

npm start

No `npm install` needed first — opencc has zero dependencies. This one command makes the `opencc` command available anywhere on your computer, not just inside this folder. You only ever run this once.

3. Set your config

opencc init

Run this from anywhere — you don't need to be inside the `opencc` folder. It asks these questions, in order:

1. OpenAI-compatible base URL — your AI provider's address, e.g. https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
2. OpenAI-compatible API key — the key you got from that provider
3. Model for normal Sonnet/Opus-tier requests — the model that does the real work, e.g. openai/gpt-4o
4. Model for cheap Haiku-tier background requests — a smaller/cheaper model for quick background tasks. You can leave this blank to just reuse the model from the questi