Model Relay

Switch any Claude Code window to another model from an interactive panel, route subagents to any provider,and automatically fail over when Claude hits a usage limit—all on localhost, with Remote Control and statuslines intact.

  English · 繁體中文 · Install · Features · Configuration · Changelog

Why

Claude Code binds model settings globally across every terminal window. model-relay runs a lightweight router on localhost (127.0.0.1:8950) so each window and subagent can use the model you want—with zero external cloud proxies.

Who this is for

model-relay is built for Claude Code users who combine a Claude subscription with backup or specialized endpoints (z.ai, DeepSeek, Kimi, MiniMax, OpenRouter, or a gateway on your own machine). Each provider has to accept Anthropic's /v1/messages format; a service that only speaks OpenAI Chat Completions needs a local translator (see Limitations). If you need a multi-tenant cloud proxy for an entire organization, use LiteLLM instead—model-relay is a single-user localhost daemon.

Install

Requires Node.js 20+ and Claude Code 2.1.287 or later (tested on Node.js 22.23.2 and Claude Code 2.1.306).
⚠️ Upgrading from 0.6 or earlier? Updating the plugin alone is not enough. Version 0.7+ reads only "format": 2 in ~/.claude/model-relay.json. Until you migrate your config and restart the router, an old 0.6 router still running in the background keeps running 0.6 code (without 0.7's conversation/tool loss fix or localhost security check), and once that process stops, the plugin will not start a new router until you migrate. Run /provider setup upgrade my model-relay config and Claude does it with you, or follow UPGRADING.md by hand (node tools/setup.mjs migrate, then migrate --go, then /provider restart).

1. Set your provider's API key before…