Claude Code is a powerful AI coding assistant that normally costs money because it uses Anthropic's cloud API. But with a tool called Ollama, you can run it completely free on your own computer: no internet needed, no rate limits, and your code never leaves your machine.
This guide walks you through the full setup from scratch, step by step.


Good news: You do NOT need an Anthropic account, API key, or credit card for this setup.

Ollama is the software that runs AI models locally on your computer. Think of it as the engine that powers everything.

curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh


Go to https://ollama.com and download the Windows installer (.exe file). Run it just like any normal Windows app installation.
y the installa


Note: Ollama v0.14.0 or newer is required for Claude Code compatibility.

Now you need to download an AI model that will do the actual coding work. Pick one based on how powerful your computer is:


Example : if you have a powerful PC, run the following:

The download will take a few minutes depending on your internet speed. You will see a progress bar.


Tip: For best results with Claude Code, your model should support at least 32,000–64,000 tokens of context. Qwen2.5-Coder and Qwen3-Coder both support this well.

Now let's install Claude Code itself. There are different commands depending on your operating system.

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

You should see a version number printed. If you see 'command not found', restart your terminal and try again.

Note: The native installer is the recommended method. It does not require Node.js and updates itself automatically.

By default, Claude Code tries to connect to Anthropic's cloud servers. We need to tell it to talk to your local Ollama instead. We do this by setting environment variables.

Mac and Linux — Add to your shell profile

Open your terminal and run these three commands:

echo 'export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="ollama"' >> ~/.bashrc


echo 'export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=""' >> ~/.bashrc

echo 'export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="http://localhost:11434"' >> ~/.bashrc

$env:ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL = "http://localhost:11434"


Important: These PowerShell variables are temporary. To make them permanent, add them to your Windows system environment variables via System Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables.

Step 5 — Start Claude Code with Your Local Model

Claude Code will start and you'll see its interface in the terminal. You can now give it instructions in plain English — ask it to write code, fix bugs, build features, refactor files, and more.

Quick launch shortcut: You can also run: ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="" claude --model qwen2.5-coder:32b

With Claude Code running locally, here's what you can do — all for free:


Learn how to run Claude Code completely free on your PC using Ollama. No Anthropic API key or credit card required. Step-by-step setup guide for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Claude Code-Free Local Setup Guide

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