Claude Max Subscription Setup

Connects this OpenClaw tenant to the user's Claude Max subscription via the claude-max-api-proxy (a local OpenAI-compatible server that routes through the Claude Code CLI). After setup the default agent model switches to Claude Opus 4 and all agent usage is billed to the flat-rate subscription rather than per-token.

Prerequisites

• Claude Max or Claude Pro subscription at claude.ai
• claude-max-api-proxy and claude CLI are pre-installed on this VM (which claude-max-api && which claude — both should resolve)

Setup Flow

The setup has three phases. Work through them in order.

Phase 1 — Start auth (get the URL)

bash ~/.openclaw/skills/claude-max/auth-flow.sh start

This prints a single https://claude.com/cai/oauth/authorize?… URL. Send that URL to the user and ask them to:

1. Open it in their browser (logged in to their Claude account)
2. Click Authorize
3. Copy the authentication code shown on the next page and reply with it

Wait for the user's reply before continuing.

Phase 2 — Submit the code

Once the user sends back the code, run:

bash ~/.openclaw/skills/claude-max/auth-flow.sh submit <CODE_FROM_USER>

Expected output (success):

OK logged_in=true email=<user@example.com> subscription=max

If it prints FAIL, tell the user the code may have expired and restart from Phase 1.

Phase 3 — Enable the proxy and switch the model

bash ~/.openclaw/skills/claude-max/auth-flow.sh enable claude-opus-4

This:

1. Starts the claude-max-api systemd service (proxy on localhost:3456)
2. Health-checks the proxy (/health → {"status":"ok"})
3. Updates models.providers.openai to point at localhost:3456
4. Sets agents.defaults.model.primary to openai/claude-opus-4
5. Validates the config and restarts the gateway atomically

If the script exits 0, confirm to the user: "Done — your agent is now running on Claude Opus 4 via your Max subscription."

Check status at any time

bash ~/.openclaw/skills/claude-max/auth-flow.sh status

Choosing a different model

Pass a model ID to enable:

bash ~/.openclaw/skills/claude-max/auth-flow.sh enable claude-sonnet-4

Reverting to the hosted model catalog

If the user wants to go back to the LiteLLM-hosted models:

openclaw config set agents.defaults.model.primary "litellm/gpt-5.3-codex"
openclaw config set models.providers.openai.baseUrl "${LITELLM_BASE_URL}" 
openclaw config validate
bash ~/.openclaw/skills/openclaw-config/safe-restart.sh --reason "revert to LiteLLM"
sudo systemctl stop claude-max-api

Troubleshooting