Claude Code + Ollama/OpenRouter: Fix "model not found" (set 3 default models)
TL;DR: Claude Code internally uses 3 default models (Haiku/Sonnet/Opus). If you only configure one, youâll hit intermittent 404 model ... not found errors. Fix: set ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL, ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL, and ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL.
Introduction
Recently, Ollama added support for Claude Code. In the Ollama Blog, the instructions are clear and easy:
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434
# Run Claude Code with an Ollama model:
claude --model gpt-oss:20b
# Models in Ollama's Cloud also work with Claude Code:
claude --model glm-4.7:cloud
However, if you use a proxy server, you might see the following error:
HTTP Request:
{
"model": "claude-haiku-4-5-20251001",
"max_tokens": 1,
"messages": [
{
"role": "user",
"content": "count"
}
],
"tools":[
{
"name":"Task",
<...snip...>
HTTP Response:
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json
{
"type": "error",
"error": {
"type": "not_found_error",
"message": "model 'claude-haiku-4-5-20251001' not found"
}
}
In addition, telemetry is continuously sending requests to http://localhost:11434/api/event_logging/batch, getting a 404. My TOC doesnât accept this :D
The Problem Nobody Tells You About
Claude Code doesnât use a single model, it uses 3 internally:
| Tier | Variable | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| HAIKU | ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL |
Fast auxiliary tasks: terminal titles, conversation summaries, bash path extraction |
| SONNET | ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL |
Main coding model |
| OPUS | ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL |
Complex reasoning and deep analysis |
If you donât configure all 3, Claude Code will fail with 404 errors looking for the other models, for instance claude-haiku-4-5-20251001. This will happen depending on the internal task performed by Claude Code.
Working with Ollama (Local)
Itâs highly recommended to bump the default context length to 64K and allow multiple loaded models + parallel requests:
export OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=64000
export OLLAMA_MAX_LOADED_MODELS=3
export OLLAMA_NUM_PARALLEL=2
One-liner for 64GB RAM (Full Power)
If you want maximum performance and have the RAM to spare:
DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen3:8b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="qwen3-coder:latest" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="qwen3:72b-q4_K_M" \
claude
| Tier | Model | RAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| HAIKU | qwen3:8b |
~5GB | Fast for auxiliary tasks |
| SONNET | qwen3-coder:latest |
~20GB | Code specialized |
| OPUS | qwen3:72b-q4_K_M |
~45GB | Full power reasoning |
One-liner for 64GB RAM (Lightweight)
If you prefer to keep RAM free for other tasks:
DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen3:4b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="qwen3-coder:latest" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="qwen3:32b-q4_K_M" \
claude
| Tier | Model | RAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| HAIKU | qwen3:4b |
~3GB | Minimal footprint |
| SONNET | qwen3-coder:latest |
~20GB | Code specialized |
| OPUS | qwen3:32b-q4_K_M |
~20GB | Good reasoning, less RAM |
One-liner for 32GB RAM (Full Power)
Pushing 32GB to the limit:
DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen3:4b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="deepseek-coder-v2:16b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="qwen3:32b-q4_K_M" \
claude
| Tier | Model | RAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| HAIKU | qwen3:4b |
~3GB | Minimal footprint |
| SONNET | deepseek-coder-v2:16b |
~10GB | Great coder, lighter |
| OPUS | qwen3:32b-q4_K_M |
~20GB | Best reasoning at this size |
One-liner for 32GB RAM (Lightweight)
If you want to keep your system responsive:
DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen3:4b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="deepseek-coder-v2:16b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="deepseek-coder-v2:16b" \
claude
| Tier | Model | RAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| HAIKU | qwen3:4b |
~3GB | Minimal footprint |
| SONNET | deepseek-coder-v2:16b |
~10GB | Great coder |
| OPUS | deepseek-coder-v2:16b |
~10GB | Same model, less context switching |
This last config uses the same model for SONNET and OPUS. You lose some reasoning power, but itâs much lighter on RAM and avoids constant model swapping.
If youâre using Ollama Cloud, there are other powerful alternatives available. Check the cloud models here.
OpenRouter (Free Models)
One-liner
DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://openrouter.ai/api" \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="$OPENROUTER_API_KEY" \
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen/qwen3-4b:free" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="qwen/qwen3-coder:free" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:free" \
claude
Important: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="" must be explicitly empty (not just unset) for OpenRouter to work.
Recommended Free Models
| Tier | Model | Context | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| HAIKU | qwen/qwen3-4b:free |
40K | Light and fast |
| HAIKU | xiaomi/mimo-v2-flash:free |
262K | More context |
| SONNET | qwen/qwen3-coder:free |
262K | 480B MoE, excellent for code |
| SONNET | mistralai/devstral-2512:free |
262K | New Devstral |
| OPUS | deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:free |
163K | Reasoning chains |
| OPUS | meta-llama/llama-3.1-405b-instruct:free |
131K | 405B parameters |
Shell Aliases
Add these to your .bashrc or .zshrc:
Ollama 64GB (Full Power)
alias claude-ollama='DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen3:8b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="qwen3-coder:latest" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="qwen3:72b-q4_K_M" \
claude'
Ollama 64GB (Lightweight)
alias claude-ollama-light='DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen3:4b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="qwen3-coder:latest" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="qwen3:32b-q4_K_M" \
claude'
Ollama 32GB (Full Power)
alias claude-ollama='DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen3:4b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="deepseek-coder-v2:16b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="qwen3:32b-q4_K_M" \
claude'
Ollama 32GB (Lightweight)
alias claude-ollama-light='DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen3:4b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="deepseek-coder-v2:16b" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="deepseek-coder-v2:16b" \
claude'
OpenRouter
alias claude-openrouter='DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 \
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://openrouter.ai/api" \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="$OPENROUTER_API_KEY" \
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL="qwen/qwen3-4b:free" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL="qwen/qwen3-coder:free" \
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL="deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:free" \
claude'