Connect your app
dollama isn't just for Claude Code. Anything that can point at a custom base URL — Continue, Aider, a home-assistant bot, your own script — can run on the network. The fastest way is the local proxy.
dollama isn't just for Claude Code. Anything that can point at a custom base URL — Continue, Aider, a home-assistant bot, your own script — can run on the network. The fastest way is the local proxy.
When you run dollama private, the CLI starts a small local proxy that listens on http://localhost:11435 and speaks the Anthropic Messages API. Your app talks to that local address exactly as if it were talking to Anthropic directly — the proxy handles authentication, routing to an available node, context optimization, and SSE streaming for you.
Because it's a standard Anthropic-compatible endpoint, any tool that lets you override the API base URL works with no code changes. Your files, repo, and tool execution never leave your machine — only the inference prompt is sent to the network.
macOS / Linux (including Raspberry Pi on a 64-bit OS):
curl -fsSL https://dollama.net/install.sh | shThis runs in the foreground and prints the address it's listening on. On first run it auto-provisions an API token. Add --no-tray on a headless box (see Raspberry Pi & headless).
dollama privateSet your app's Anthropic base URL to the local proxy and use the network model. Details below.
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="http://localhost:11435"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="dollama-proxy"
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL="network:qwen3.5:9b"Most apps expose these as environment variables or settings. The values are always the same:
| Setting | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Base URL | http://localhost:11435 | Where the proxy listens. Override the port with dollama private -p <port>. |
| API key | dollama-proxy | A placeholder — the proxy supplies the real token. Any non-empty value works. |
| Model | network:qwen3.5:9b | The network worker model. See Docs for the model tiers. |
Remote device? If your app runs on a different machine than the proxy, bind/point at that machine's IP instead of localhost and make sure the proxy port is reachable on your LAN. Treat the proxy as trusted-LAN only — don't expose it to the public internet.
One command does everything — starts the proxy, sets the env vars, and launches Claude Code:
dollama launch claudeStart dollama private in one terminal, then run your app with the env vars set. This is the generic pattern for Continue, Aider, home-assistant bots, and your own scripts.
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="http://localhost:11435" \
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="dollama-proxy" \
ANTHROPIC_MODEL="network:qwen3.5:9b" \
your-appPoint the official SDK at the proxy by setting base_url:
from anthropic import Anthropic
client = Anthropic(
base_url="http://localhost:11435",
api_key="dollama-proxy",
)
msg = client.messages.create(
model="network:qwen3.5:9b",
max_tokens=512,
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello from the dollama network."}],
)
print(msg.content[0].text)The endpoint is plain Anthropic Messages — anything that can POST JSON works:
curl --no-buffer -X POST http://localhost:11435/v1/messages \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "x-api-key: dollama-proxy" \
-d '{
"model": "network:qwen3.5:9b",
"max_tokens": 512,
"stream": true,
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from my app"}]
}'The CLI ships native Linux arm64 builds, so it runs on a Raspberry Pi — perfect for always-on assistants and bots. A couple of things to know first:
armv7) binaries — check with uname -m (you want aarch64).
dollama network — that needs a real GPU/Ollama to do inference.
--no-tray so it never tries to start a system-tray UI.
dollama private --no-trayDrop this in ~/.config/systemd/user/dollama-connect.service, then systemctl --user enable --now dollama-connect:
[Unit]
Description=dollama private proxy
After=network-online.target
[Service]
ExecStart=%h/.local/bin/dollama private --no-tray
Restart=on-failure
[Install]
WantedBy=default.targetAdjust ExecStart to wherever the installer placed the binary (which dollama).
If you can't or don't want to run the CLI on a device — say it's too constrained, or you're calling from a serverless function — you can't call the relay's /v1/messages directly with a plain HTTP client. The relay is content-free: it requires a persistent content tunnel (X-Dollama-CLI-Tunnel-ID) that a stateless request can't provide.
The actual answer is dollama gateway — a small persistent process (not itself serverless) that holds the tunnel open and exposes a plain HTTP endpoint your constrained client can call. The pattern is: your serverless/constrained client → HTTP → a self-hosted gateway (holds the tunnel) → the relay. See the gateway deployment guide for how to stand one up.
If you'd rather implement the tunnel yourself instead of running a gateway, the full mechanism (token types, tunnel handshake, content offload) is in the minimal-client guide. Full request/response shapes, streaming events, and more language examples are on the API reference.
dollama private is up and the base URL port matches (default 11435).
dollama status, or trace a single request with dollama debug trace.
uname -m reports aarch64. A 32-bit OS won't have a matching binary.
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL, set that env var; otherwise look for a base-URL setting in its config.
Every flag and config key lives in the CLI reference. For privacy specifics (what nodes can see), see the Docs FAQ.