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Claude Desktop with OpenCheese

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Claude Desktop is Anthropic's graphical app for Windows and macOS. It reaches OpenCheese through its third-party inference mode, which is set up from a configuration file you import inside the app, not from the terminal. There is no Claude Desktop for Linux: use Claude Code there.

01Install the app, but do not sign in

Download Claude Desktop from claude.com/download: Windows 10 build 19041 or newer (the .msix installer), or macOS 14 Sonoma or newer (the .dmg).

Open it and stop at the sign-in screen. Do not sign in and do not create an Anthropic account: third-party mode replaces that sign-in, and an account signed in first sends your requests to Anthropic rather than to OpenCheese.

02Enable Developer Mode

The configuration window stays hidden until Developer Mode is on. From the app menu (on Windows, the menu button in the top-left corner of the sign-in screen):

  1. Open Help.
  2. Open Troubleshooting.
  3. Click Enable Developer Mode.

A Developer menu now appears beside Help. Open it and click Configure Third-Party Inference…, and leave that window open.

If the window opens read-only and says the configuration is organization-managed, an administrator has pushed a profile to your device, and it cannot be configured this way.

03Download the configuration

Sign in to the OpenCheese dashboard, open Configuration, choose the Claude Code tab and its Claude Desktop switch, pick an API key and confirm your password, then download OpenCheese.json. The app names the configuration after the file, so keep the name unless you want a different label.

The file looks like this:

json
{
  "$schemaVersion": 2,
  "inference": {
    "provider": "gateway",
    "baseUrl": "https://api.opencheese.dev",
    "credential": {
      "kind": "static",
      "apiKey": "YOUR_OPENCHEESE_API_KEY"
    }
  },
  "models": {
    "prefer1mContext": true,
    "pricing": {
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}
  • baseUrl must not end in /v1: the app adds /v1/models and /v1/messages itself.
  • No model list is needed: the app reads the models your plan includes from /v1/models each time it starts.
  • The file holds your API key in plain text. Delete the downloaded copy once the import has finished; the app keeps its own.

04Import it and restart

Back in the configuration window:

  1. Open the configuration picker in the top-right corner.
  2. Click Import configuration… and select the downloaded file.
  3. Check that Connection shows Gateway and that the base URL and API key are filled in.
  4. Click Apply Changes, then Apply locally. The app writes the configuration and relaunches itself.

Imported configurations are stored in:

System Folder
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\Claude-3p\configLibrary\
macOS ~/Library/Application Support/Claude-3p/configLibrary/

05Check it works

  • After the relaunch, the sign-in screen offers the OpenCheese deployment instead of an Anthropic account. Choose it.
  • The model picker lists the Claude models your plan includes. If it is empty, the app could not reach OpenCheese when it started.
  • The app reads the configuration once at launch. If anything looks stale, quit it completely and reopen it; closing the window is not enough.
  • To see which settings the app read, use Help → Troubleshooting → Copy Managed Configuration Report (secrets are redacted).

Usage appears in the dashboard under Transactions, grouped as one session per conversation.

The cheese has holes. Your infrastructure should not.