No more manual configuration file changes: 3 steps to integrate Claude Code with DeepSeek V4

Claude Code + third-party models — changing the model requires modifying three places: settings.json, .zshrc, and restarting the terminal.

With the cc-switch tool, this entire process becomes a single click. Below are the installation and configuration steps, using DeepSeek as an example — 3 steps. No fluff, let’s go.

System Environment

💡 Hardware: MacBook Pro 2023
Chip: Apple M2 Pro
OS: macOS 14.5

Installation

1. Visit the GitHub repo: https://github.com/farion1231/cc-switch. Open a terminal and run the following two commands to complete the installation.

brew tap farion1231/ccswitch
brew install --cask cc-switch

2. Open cc-switch: press Cmd + Space, type ccswitch, and you’ll see the desktop app already installed. Open it as shown below:

Configuration & Usage

Configure Claude Code to use the DeepSeek model

1. Go to the DeepSeek website (https://platform.deepseek.com/api_keys), complete registration, create an API key, and copy it.

2. Open the cc-switch app, click the + button in the top-right corner, then configure as follows:

   • API Key: The key you obtained in the previous step.
   • Model Mapping: Configure as shown below.

3. Add this configuration to cc-switch, then enable the newly added DeepSeek profile.

Verification

When you open a terminal and run claude, you’ll see that it has automatically switched to DeepSeek V4 by default.

Other Questions

How does it achieve model switching?

It’s very straightforward: it writes the configuration directly into the native configuration files of each CLI tool.

User clicks the switch
↓
Reads the corresponding provider configuration from the SQLite database (~/.cc-switch/cc-switch.db)
↓
Writes it into the native configuration files of each CLI tool (e.g., ~/.claude.json for Claude Code)
↓
Changes take effect

What I used to do manually — writing aliases in .zshrc — is exactly the same thing that cc-switch does, except cc-switch adds a GUI and automation.

How do I switch if I have an official Claude Pro subscription?

cc-switch includes a built-in Official Login preset. When you switch to it, it will:

1. Clear all ANTHROPIC_* environment variables.
2. Reset customApiKeyResponses to empty (no pre-approved third-party keys).
3. Claude Code, unable to find environment variables, falls back to reading oauthAccount → using your Pro subscription.

So just click the preset in the cc-switch interface; Claude Code doesn’t need to restart (hot-switch).

Closing Words

In a previous article, I wrote about how to configure Claude Code to use domestic large models seamlessly by editing configuration files. The method involved settings.json + ~/.zshrc to freely use different models with Claude Code.

Compared to other tools on the market, this approach is lightweight and fully configurable. I’ve been using it since last year without any plugins or extra tools. But the downside is obvious: you need to modify configuration files, which is still somewhat challenging for beginners.

Moreover, there’s one issue that can’t be solved: some models don’t support the Anthropic protocol — they only support the OpenAI protocol. In that case, a protocol conversion layer is needed.

Today, I’m showing you step by step how to visually configure large models for Claude Code using the cc-switch tool.

Alright, that’s all for the installation and usage of cc-switch. In the next article, I’ll cover how to integrate more free large models via cc-switch.