Set up Claude Code with Amazon Bedrock

This runbook connects Claude Code to Claude models on Amazon Bedrock through Bifrost. It covers the Bifrost and Claude Code configuration only.

Claude Code model: bedrock/claude-sonnet-5
  -> Bifrost deployment: claude-sonnet-5
    -> Bedrock model ID: global.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5

Choose the model mappings

In this guide, a deployment name is the stable alias that you configure on a Bifrost provider key. Claude Code sends that name to Bifrost; Bifrost replaces it with the corresponding Bedrock model ID before inference. The following mappings are sample configurations based on the model IDs in the linked Amazon Bedrock model cards:

Claude model	Bedrock global model ID (select region applicable to your policy)	Recommended Bifrost deployment name	Direct Claude Code model
Claude Opus 4.8	`global.anthropic.claude-opus-4-8`	`claude-opus-4-8`	`bedrock/claude-opus-4-8`
Claude Sonnet 5	`global.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5`	`claude-sonnet-5`	`bedrock/claude-sonnet-5`
Claude Sonnet 4.6	`global.anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-6`	`claude-sonnet-4-6`	`bedrock/claude-sonnet-4-6`
Claude Haiku 4.5	`global.anthropic.claude-haiku-4-5-20251001-v1:0`	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	`bedrock/claude-haiku-4-5-2025-1001`

Sources: Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Sonnet 5, Claude Sonnet 4.6, and Claude Haiku 4.5.

The recommended deployment names are Bifrost aliases and are required by claude code harness to make accurate inference calls. If you enable Claude Code gateway model discovery, however, each discovered name must begin with claude or anthropic.

1. Configure the Bedrock provider in Bifrost

In Bifrost, go to Models > Model Providers > AWS Bedrock, then add or edit the provider key that Claude Code will use.

Bifrost Deployments table showing deployment names mapped to provider model IDs — Map each Bifrost deployment name to its Bedrock model ID. Add only the models that you intend to expose to Claude Code.

Deployment mappings do not automatically expand a restricted provider key’s model allowlist. If models is not *, include every deployment name in models exactly as it appears in deployments.

Allow Claude Code headers

In Settings > Client Settings, set Allowed Headers to * or explicitly allow the headers Claude Code sends, including:

anthropic-beta, anthropic-dangerous-direct-browser-access, anthropic-version, authorization, content-type, user-agent, x-api-key

Keep anthropic-beta as an open value because Claude Code adds capability values over time.

2. Configure the virtual key

Create or edit the virtual key used by Claude Code:

Allow the bedrock provider.
Confirm the virtual key is active and has sufficient budget and rate limits.

3. Setup harness

With Edge installed
Without Edge installed

Bifrost Edge provides the more seamless setup: it routes Claude Code traffic through Bifrost at the machine level, so you do not need to configure a gateway URL or virtual key in Claude Code.

Install or deploy Bifrost Edge by following Deploy with MDM. If Edge is already installed, skip this step.
Complete the one-time setup approval and sign in through your browser.
Open Edge from the menu bar or system tray, select the virtual key configured in the previous step, and confirm that Edge is connected.
Confirm that Claude Code is allowed by your organization’s AI app policy.
Install Claude Code using Anthropic’s installation guide, then start it normally. No changes to .claude/settings.json, ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL, or ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN are required.

Edge now routes Claude Code requests through Bifrost in the background. For more detail about the user experience, see How Edge works.

Install Claude Code using Anthropic’s installation guide. Then edit the most specific settings file that applies:

User: ~/.claude/settings.json
Project: .claude/settings.json
Personal project override: .claude/settings.local.json

Remove a top-level model setting if one is present because it overrides the environment-based model selection below.

Without gateway model discovery

Use provider-qualified Bifrost deployment names for deterministic routing:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://gateway.example.com/anthropic",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "your-bifrost-virtual-key",
    "ANTHROPIC_MODEL": "bedrock/claude-sonnet-5",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL": "bedrock/claude-opus-4-8",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL": "bedrock/claude-sonnet-5",
    "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "bedrock/claude-haiku-4-5-20251001"
  }
}

Remove any tier mapping for a model that you did not configure in Bifrost. Restart Claude Code after changing the file.Without discovery, Claude Code does not call the gateway model endpoint. Its /model picker shows its built-in choices, while the configured environment variables determine which Bifrost deployment each built-in tier uses.

With gateway model discovery

Add CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY to the same configuration:

{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://gateway.example.com/anthropic",
    "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "your-bifrost-virtual-key",
    "CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY": "1"
  }
}

Gateway discovery requires Claude Code 2.1.129 or later. Claude Code calls GET /v1/models?limit=1000 relative to ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL, which becomes GET /anthropic/v1/models?limit=1000 on Bifrost. Once that’s done, you can call /model primitive on your claude code. That will show you list of models configured on Bifrost for the virtual key.

Claude Code silently ignores every discovered model ID that does not begin with claude or anthropic. A deployment such as coding-sonnet can work when pinned directly as bedrock/coding-sonnet, but it will not appear in /model when gateway discovery is enabled.

Additional behavior:

Results are cached in ~/.claude/cache/gateway-models.json.
A managed availableModels policy can filter the discovered list further.
Bifrost’s Anthropic-compatible model response removes the bedrock/ prefix. Selecting a discovered entry therefore sends a bare deployment name, which must resolve to Bedrock through the virtual key or a routing rule.

See Claude Code’s gateway protocol reference and model configuration guide for the current discovery behavior and tier variables.

4. Test Claude Code

Start Claude Code normally and run:

/model

Discovery disabled: Select the built-in Claude tier that maps to the deployment you configured through ANTHROPIC_MODEL or the corresponding default tier variable.
Discovery enabled: Select either the configured claude-* deployment under From gateway or the matching built-in Claude tier.
With Edge: Select the desired model as you normally would.

After selecting the model, send:

Reply with claude-code-bedrock-ok. Do not call any tools.

Open Logs in Bifrost and confirm the request used bedrock and resolved the expected deployment to its Bedrock model ID.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Deployment is absent from `/anthropic/v1/models`	It is missing from the provider-key or virtual-key allowlist	Add the bare deployment name to both allowlists, or intentionally use `*` on the provider key
Bifrost lists the deployment but Claude Code does not	Its name does not begin with `claude` or `anthropic`, discovery was skipped, or managed settings filtered it	Rename the deployment, check the discovery variables, and inspect the discovery cache
`could not auto resolve a provider` after selecting a discovered model	Claude Code sent a bare deployment name that did not resolve unambiguously	Use a Bedrock-only virtual key or add a Bedrock routing rule
The wrong model is used	A top-level Claude Code `model` setting overrides the environment variables	Remove the setting, restart Claude Code, and check `/model`
Request headers are rejected	Bifrost Client Settings do not allow all required Claude Code headers	Set Allowed Headers to `*` or add the missing headers

Runbooks

CLI Agents & Editors

SDKs & Frameworks

Identity Providers (SSO)

Content Safety (Guardrails)

Observability

Vector Databases

Set up Claude Code with Amazon Bedrock

Choose the model mappings

1. Configure the Bedrock provider in Bifrost

Allow Claude Code headers

2. Configure the virtual key

3. Setup harness

Without gateway model discovery

With gateway model discovery

4. Test Claude Code

Troubleshooting

​Choose the model mappings

​1. Configure the Bedrock provider in Bifrost

​Allow Claude Code headers

​2. Configure the virtual key

​3. Setup harness

​Without gateway model discovery

​With gateway model discovery

​4. Test Claude Code

​Troubleshooting

Choose the model mappings

1. Configure the Bedrock provider in Bifrost

Allow Claude Code headers

2. Configure the virtual key

3. Setup harness

Without gateway model discovery

With gateway model discovery

4. Test Claude Code

Troubleshooting