Run Claude Code on Your Phone with OpenRouter

With UserLand + OpenRouter, you can run the full Claude Code experience right on your Android phone, no Anthropic API key needed.

What You'll Need

An Android phone with the UserLand app (grab it from Play Store or F-Droid)
An OpenRouter account with an API key (sign up here)

That's it. No laptop, no cloud VM.

Quick Setup (Takes ~3 minutes)

Open UserLand, pick your favorite distro (Ubuntu is my favourite), and run:

# Install Claude Code globally
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

Wire It Up to OpenRouter

Add this to your shell config (~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc):

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="your-openrouter-key-here"
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://openrouter.ai/api"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="$OPENROUTER_API_KEY"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=""  # <-- Important: explicitly empty!
export CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY=1

Then reload:

source ~/.zshrc

Why the empty ANTHROPIC_API_KEY? Claude Code checks this first. If it's set (even to a dummy value), it'll try Anthropic directly and fail. Setting it to "" tells it "nope, use the gateway instead."

Test Drive

claude --version          # Should print something like "1.0.x"
claude models list        # Should show OpenRouter's model catalog

If you see a list of models — you're live.

Model Recommendations (Free on OpenRouter)

Model	Best For
`nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra`	Daily driver — NVIDIA's flagship, strong reasoning & coding
`nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra:free`	Same model, explicitly free tier
`nvidia/llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instruct`	Fast, capable, free

All NVIDIA models on OpenRouter are free. Nemotron-3-Ultra is the most capable for coding and reasoning.

What Gets Created

~/.claude/settings.json — Your Claude Code preferences
~/.claude/projects/ — Session history per project

Everything lives locally on your phone. No cloud sync needed unless you want it.

Pro Tips

Start in your project folder: cd ~/my-project && claude — Claude Code picks up context from the current directory
Use claude models list to see what's available on OpenRouter (they add new ones regularly)
Pair with a Bluetooth keyboard for a genuinely pleasant mobile coding experience

You now have a pocket-sized AI pair programmer. No laptop required. Happy coding!

Sahu @code.withsahu