Use your Claude subscription via Claude CLI (no API key)

Dimmy can run Anthropic's official claude CLI as a subprocess and use it as the LLM provider for style rewrites and meeting recaps. The CLI owns your login session (your Pro / Team / Max plan), and Dimmy only talks to its stdin/stdout. Dimmy never reads your credentials file.

Prerequisites

• An active Claude Pro, Team, Max, or Enterprise plan.
• Node.js 18 or newer. Get the LTS from nodejs.org. npm ships with it.
• A browser, for the sign-in flow.

Install the CLI

bash
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Open a NEW terminal (so PATH refreshes) and verify it's there:

bash
claude --version

Sign in

Easiest path: let Dimmy do it. Open the Claude Code card in Dimmy (see below) and click Sign in via browser. Dimmy launches the CLI's login and watches for it to complete. You can also just run claude in a terminal the first time and follow its sign-in prompt.

Quick sanity check that the CLI answers:

bash
echo "say pong" | claude --print

Turn it on in Dimmy

The wording differs slightly per platform, but in both cases the connection status lives on Settings → Integrations and the provider switch lives on Settings → Output.

1. 1Open the Claude Code connection card on Settings → Integrations.
2. 2If it's not green yet, click Sign in via browser and finish the login.
3. 3Flip on the subscription provider/toggle as in the table above.
4. 4Press your hotkey and dictate a sentence with an LLM style active. The result now comes from your Claude subscription.

What this affects

• Style rewrites (Correct, Summarize, Elaborate, Prompt, and friends). Every dictation that passes through an LLM style now uses your subscription.
• Meeting recaps, when you've enabled the subscription for recap.
• Custom prompts you defined in Custom prompts. They keep working, only the provider changes.

What this does NOT affect

• STT (speech-to-text). That still runs locally (Whisper) or via your chosen STT provider.
• Telemetry. Dimmy records aggregate events (status probed, login completed, invocation success / failure) with no prompt or response content. See Telemetry.
• Other AI tools on your machine. Dimmy spawns its own subprocess; it does not interfere with claude when you use it manually.

Gotchas

• Always open a fresh terminal AFTER npm install. Windows PATH only picks up the new entry in new shells.
• Corporate networks (Zscaler, Netskope, etc.) can break the sign-in callback. If login hangs or fails with a TLS error, try from a personal network to confirm.
• nvm users: install the CLI with the same Node version you use day-to-day. Switching versions loses global packages.
• If you sign out of Claude in another tool, the CLI session goes too. Sign in again from the Dimmy card.

Cost and quotas

Dimmy makes one CLI call per LLM action (one rewrite, one recap). Each call counts against your subscription's usage. There is no separate Dimmy quota: the CLI talks to Anthropic with your account.