Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop can route all its inference (Chat, Cowork, and the built-in Claude Code surface) through Gateway. Configure one machine in the app, or a fleet with MDM. Shared setup: Building with coding agents.

Configure Claude Desktop

1. Open Developer → Configure Third-Party Inference. If it’s hidden, first enable Help → Troubleshooting → Enable Developer Mode.
2. In Connection, set the inference provider to Gateway
3. Fill in the Gateway credentials card from the table below
4. Click Test connection, which runs model discovery and then a real inference request
5. In Models, turn on Model discovery and click Test model discovery
6. Click Apply Locally, restart the app, and send a prompt

For identity-provider sign-in, set Credential kind to Interactive sign-in and follow Anthropic’s SSO setup.

Model discovery

With discovery on, the picker loads from https://api-gateway.merge.dev/v1/anthropic/v1/models at launch, so new models appear without config changes. Desktop normally hides non-Claude models, so Gateway formats the list to keep the full chat catalog, your organization’s aliases, and default_routing, omitting image, audio, video, and embedding models since they can’t answer chat. If a Desktop update hides non-Claude models before Gateway catches up, pin a model list.

Pin a fixed model list

Add entries under Model list (inferenceModels) to curate the picker. Each takes a Model ID (the exact Gateway ID, such as openai/gpt-5.5) and a Display name, and the first is the default for new sessions. A non-empty list replaces discovery, so include every model you want.

Turn on Offer 1M-context variant (supports1m) only for models confirmed to take 1M-token requests through Gateway. The app can’t check, and the entry fails otherwise.

Scope to a project

The Anthropic endpoint has no project_id body field. Use a project API key, or with an organization key add X-Project-Id under Custom inference headers.

Managed configuration (MDM, for fleets)

Export produces a .mobileconfig (macOS) or .reg (Windows) from the settings above; Anthropic’s configuration reference covers delivery. The equivalent keys:

{
  "inferenceProvider": "gateway",
  "inferenceGatewayBaseUrl": "https://api-gateway.merge.dev/v1/anthropic",
  "inferenceGatewayApiKey": "mg_...",
  "inferenceGatewayAuthScheme": "bearer",
  "modelDiscoveryEnabled": true
}

Set inferenceModels to pin the fleet’s picker; if every entry is a full model ID, the app skips discovery.

Troubleshooting

Next steps