Claude Code is my tool of choice for AI coding. I wrote about using Claude Code here.

Part of why it’s great is the agentic nature of it along with how Claude Opus (the model) supports that.

There’s now z.ai which provides a model (currently GLM-4.6) and compatible endpoint so that you can use it from within Claude Code. It lets you do quite a bit; the thing is, compared to Claude Max which costs ~$100/month or ~$200/month, the GLM Coding plans only cost $6/month (Lite), $30/month (Pro), $60/month (Max). It’s a steal if you can get it to work for you.

The model itself (as of GLM-4.6) is not multimodal — it doesn’t support images; it has support for reading images via an MCP. This is only available with Pro and Max plans.

Set up is easy and it’s relatively cheap, so it’s worth trying. Check the official docs, but it’s easy:

  1. Get an API key
  2. I use fish shell, so I run: ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.z.ai/api/anthropic ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=<API TOKEN> claude
  3. (optional) if you have access to the image reading MCP, do: claude mcp add -s user zai-mcp-server --env Z_AI_API_KEY=<API TOKEN> Z_AI_MODE=ZAI -- npx -y "@z_ai/mcp-server"

You don’t need to set ANTHROPIC_MODEL (or anything) in ~/.claude/settings.json.

In Claude Code, if you get errors after sending any prompts, run /logout with just claude first and then run claude with env set again.

If you want to try it out, consider my referral link for a 10% discount.

Updated November 11, 2025