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ELL Blog

How to Use GLM 5.3 With Claude Code

https://blog.elijahlopez.ca/posts/how-to-use-glm-5.3-with-claude-code/ Elijah Lopez

Create an OpenRouter API key

nano ~/.bashrc # ~/.zshrc on macOS

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="<your-openrouter-api-key>"
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://openrouter.ai/api"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="$OPENROUTER_API_KEY"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="" # Important: Must be explicitly empty
export CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY=1

Source the updated profile.

. ~/.bashrc

Run claude.

Run /model in claude code. Go down the list till you find Z.ai: GLM 5.3 (From gateway).

If you can’t find the model, there’s two potential issues:

  1. You’re logged into using an Anthropic account.
  2. Environment variables were not sourced (I ran into this issue because I copy pasted the source command for zshrc instead of bashrc); You can use echo $OPENROUTER_API_KEY