Claude Desktop

Route Claude Desktop through the gateway with its third-party inference setting, which lives in the app and is not written or checked by the CLI.

Claude Desktop speaks the Anthropic Messages API and can send it to a gateway of your choosing. It has no config file the CLI can write, and it is not in the CLI’s client list: vulnetix ai-firewall install does nothing for it and status does not report it.

Set it up

Store the Anthropic key once for the organisation:

vulnetix ai-firewall key set anthropic --from-env ANTHROPIC_KEY

Then, in the app:

Help > Troubleshooting > Enable Developer Mode.
Developer > Configure Third-Party Inference…
Backend: Gateway (Anthropic-compatible).
Base URL: https://guardrails.vulnetix.com/anthropic/<uuid>, with no /v1.
API key: your Vulnetix API key.
Auth scheme: bearer. The gateway also accepts x-api-key, so either scheme works.
Apply locally, then quit the app fully and reopen it. The setting is read at start-up.
On the start screen choose Continue with Gateway.

The menu paths are Claude Desktop’s and can change between releases.

Verify

The start screen offers Continue with Gateway. If it does not, the setting was not applied.
The model picker lists only what the gateway returns from GET /anthropic/<uuid>/v1/models, which is filtered by your model policy. A picker that shows your allowed models and not Anthropic’s full list is confirmation.
Send a message that one of your guardrails blocks. The gateway answers 403 in the Anthropic error envelope with code: request_blocked, and the app shows the message.
In the console’s capability inventory, requests appear under the client claude-desktop (from a claude-desktop/ user agent).

Errors

Status	`code`	Cause	Fix
`401`	`invalid_api_key`	The API key field holds an Anthropic key	Use your Vulnetix API key
`403`	`provider_key_missing`	No Anthropic key in the vault. The model picker is empty for the same reason.	`vulnetix ai-firewall key set anthropic`, then restart the app
`403`	`model_not_allowed`	The provider is in allowlist mode and the model is not listed	Pick an allowed model
`404`	`unsupported_api`	The base URL ends in `/v1`, or the slug is not `anthropic`	Use `https://guardrails.vulnetix.com/anthropic/<uuid>`

Limits

The setting is per machine and per user. A user who turns developer mode off, or signs in with an Anthropic account instead of choosing Continue with Gateway, talks to Anthropic directly. There is no file to ship to a fleet that prevents it.
No CLI check covers Claude Desktop. An absent bypasses_firewall warning says nothing about it.
Tool-call arguments the model writes are not scanned. Prompts, attachments and tool results are.