Coding assistants send a lot of repeated context, which is exactly what ACOG’s caching saves on. Each tool below needs a base URL, your gateway key and a model. The console’s Documents → Quickstart page shows the same settings filled in with your own gateway address and a model you have connected.

In the examples, the gateway is https://gateway.acog.tessarac.com, the hosted gateway. Tools that speak the Anthropic API use that base. Tools that speak the OpenAI API use it with /v1 added.

Claude Code

Set these in your shell, or in the env block of Claude Code’s settings.json:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://gateway.acog.tessarac.com
# The gateway key goes in ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN (sent as Authorization: Bearer), not ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=acog_...
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-5
# Background work (summaries, compaction) uses the small model. Pin it too.
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL=claude-haiku-4-5
claude

For the VS Code or Cursor extension, put the same variables under claudeCode.environmentVariables.

To use a model that is not a Claude model (for example Gemini through ACOG’s translation), also set ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_MODEL_OPTION to the model id and ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_MODEL_OPTION_NAME to a display name.

Check these before you start:

• Unset CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK, CLAUDE_CODE_USE_VERTEX and CLAUDE_CODE_USE_FOUNDRY. Any of them sends traffic straight to that cloud and bypasses ACOG, with no error.
• Unset ANTHROPIC_API_KEY. If it is set, Claude Code sends it as x-api-key, ACOG does not recognize it as a gateway key, and requests fail with 401.
• A stale ANTHROPIC_MODEL or ANTHROPIC_SMALL_FAST_MODEL naming a model none of your connections declare fails with 409 model_not_configured.

When a model does not support extended thinking or an anthropic-beta feature Claude Code asks for, ACOG retries without it and marks the response with x-acog-thinking-stripped or x-acog-beta-stripped, so the session keeps working.

Cursor

In Settings → Models → OpenAI:

1. Turn on Override OpenAI Base URL and enter https://gateway.acog.tessarac.com/v1.
2. Enter your gateway key as the OpenAI API Key.
3. Add a custom model with the exact model id, for example claude-sonnet-4-5.

Remove any other OpenAI base URL override. Cursor sends requests through its own servers first, and a custom base URL applies to chat and inline edits rather than to every Cursor feature.

VS Code: Continue

Add the model both ways in Continue’s config.json. The same model id works on both bases; which provider serves it is decided by ACOG’s routing, not by the entry:

{
  "models": [
    {
      "title": "ACOG (Anthropic-compatible)",
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
      "apiBase": "https://gateway.acog.tessarac.com",
      "apiKey": "acog_..."
    },
    {
      "title": "ACOG (OpenAI-compatible)",
      "provider": "openai",
      "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
      "apiBase": "https://gateway.acog.tessarac.com/v1",
      "apiKey": "acog_..."
    }
  ]
}

Continue reads the key from its configuration, not from your shell. Remove other entries for the same models and unset OPENAI_BASE_URL: when several entries match, the last one wins. The same configuration works in JetBrains IDEs.

VS Code: Cline

In Cline’s settings, choose the OpenAI Compatible API provider, set the base URL to https://gateway.acog.tessarac.com/v1, paste your gateway key as the API key and enter the model id.

Zed

Add a language_models block to ~/.config/zed/settings.json. Zed picks the change up immediately:

{
  "language_models": {
    "anthropic": {
      "api_url": "https://gateway.acog.tessarac.com"
    },
    "openai_compatible": {
      "acog": {
        "api_url": "https://gateway.acog.tessarac.com/v1",
        "available_models": [{ "name": "gemini-2.5-flash", "max_tokens": 128000 }]
      }
    }
  }
}

Zed does not read keys from settings.json. Enter the gateway key in Zed’s provider settings when it asks. Remove any other api_url override for the same provider.

Which model to use

Any model declared on one of your connections works with any of these tools, because ACOG translates between the OpenAI and Anthropic APIs. Use auto to let ACOG choose per request; see Auto mode. If the same model is available on more than one platform and you want one in particular, add the header x-acog-channel (for example ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS="x-acog-channel: vertex" in Claude Code). See Routing and failover.