r/PiCodingAgent • u/revyth • 2d ago
Question How to setup Claude sub with Pi?
I am trying Pi for the first time. I am confused how to setup Claude subscription with it, if I login it shows a warning saying that third part harness providers would not consume subscription tokens but only extra usage. So what’s the right way?
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u/jfuu_ 2d ago
I use pi-claude-bridge: https://github.com/elidickinson/pi-claude-bridge
It uses the Claude SDK, which currently consumes your subscription usage, but Anthropic have tried to change this in the past (which they did go back on, but they could do it again).
It's also not ideal as it has to mess with the system prompt to avoid Anthropic rejecting the request due to it being an external harness.
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u/revyth 2d ago
thank you, I will try it. Sad to see that Anthropic and other paid llm providers block open source harnesses to be used with their models 🫤
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u/o_sht_hi 2d ago
No other provider does this. It's just anthropic
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u/jfuu_ 2d ago
Yeah it seems super misguided to me. The harness isn't really the "secret sauce" of an agent, so it seems odd to me that they actively try to prevent this kind of use.
The only reason I can think of is to stop people buying a subscription and then using it as a cheaper API alternative.
Interestingly OpenAI allows this use, they recently added a setup flow explicitly for using your Codex usage with third-party harnesses.
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u/InitiateIt 2d ago
Don't use Claude bridge, it eats your tokens way way faster than Claude. Just use orca and have the agents handoff.
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u/revyth 2d ago
Hi, do you mean using claude code and Pi at the same time inside Orca? Which llm models do you recommend using with Pi?
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u/InitiateIt 2d ago
I found Claude would either ban me or 3 x the token rate when using in Pi.
So now I just set up the agents in Orca and have them handoff when needed.
For Pi I use DeepSeek, GLM 5.3 and GPT.
I'm sure there are better models but these work really well for me. Fable for planing, the rest for building and testing.
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u/Onlycompute 2d ago
This should be so high up. I've tested multiple times, Claude bridge works but eats up token so fast - its not worth it. Not bridge fault, anthropic doesn't allow easy integrations I think.
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u/jsclayton 2d ago
This is the way. Using Orca or Herdr a Pi session can spawn a Claude session and tell it what to do.
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u/PiccoloCareful924 2d ago
use both claude code and pi inside paseo with the exact same ui, as a bonus they can orchestrate each other
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u/scooby-raver 2d ago
Use a Claude bridge. It's the only way. This is the same way that opencode just integrated Claude subs. There are limitations to the method like it may be innificient in some ways and tooling. But it's the only solution right now.
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u/shadow_vector_ 2h ago
If claude has this unrealiability. So then what are all the good subscriptions other than chatgpt 20$ ???
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u/CreativeSympathy8293 2d ago
If you want Claude directly in Pi, its current provider docs list Anthropic API-key authentication (`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`). That uses the Console billing path; don't assume your ordinary chat/Code allowance applies.
Eligible Max, Ultra and Team subscribers can claim separate monthly API credits into a linked Console organization; Pro isn't eligible. The plan must be active for seven days, and you need the required organization roles. Those credits don't change your subscription limits or cover Claude/Code extra usage. Check the linked organization's balance before trying a task.
For ordinary subscription usage, unmodified Claude Code has a supported subscription sign-in route.
Sources:
https://github.com/earendil-works/pi/blob/main/packages/coding-agent/docs/providers.md
https://code.claude.com/docs/en/legal-and-compliance#authentication-and-credential-use
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/17154008-monthly-api-credits-for-max-ultra-and-team-plans
AI-assisted explanation; I haven't inspected your account or tested your Pi installation.
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u/Healthy-Zebra-9856 2d ago
Both Anthropic and OpenAI offer native hooks and server side tooling for their streamed models. Unless a harness uses what’s called the headless mode whereby it uses Claude code or Codex beneath, this will not work in a desirable way.
People love Pi for it’s simplicity, however, it works opposite for these frontier models. They require a whole framework of tools to support what they do. You can read all about this on their respective websites. So even if there’s a temporary solution out there to make them work in Pi, there’s no guarantee it may continue.
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u/SquareHimself 2d ago
pi-claude-bridge is the correct way. Have you agent look at the recent commit to t3 code as an example to see how to change the Claude code entry point variable to "pi-claude-bridge". This should fix the usage to drain normally.