Connect your Claude Pro account to Crade
If you already pay for Claude Pro or Max, connecting it to Crade means your AI usage runs through your existing subscription. Here is exactly how to connect it and what changes when you do.
Crade lets you bring your own AI account. If Claude Pro is already part of your subscription stack, connecting it in Crade means you get Claude's quality on top of Crade's screen capture, without paying twice for the AI.
What you need first
- An active Claude Pro or Claude Max subscription (Anthropic, paid).
- Crade installed and signed in on your machine.
- A few minutes for the OAuth flow.
Free Claude accounts will not work for this. The connection requires a paid plan because it runs through Claude Code's authentication, which is gated.
Step-by-step
Open Crade settings
Click the gear icon in the Crade window or use the menu bar. Find "AI Provider" or "Backend".
Pick "Connect Claude"
Crade shows three options: built-in Crade, Connect Claude, Connect ChatGPT. Click Connect Claude.
Approve the install of Claude Code
If you do not have the claude CLI installed, Crade prompts to install it via Anthropic's official installer. Approve. It is a one-time setup. The CLI installs into ~/.local/bin.
Sign in to Claude
A browser window opens to Claude's OAuth page. Sign in with your Anthropic account. Approve the access scope. The browser tells you to return to Crade.
Confirm the connection
Crade shows "Connected to Claude ([email protected])". Test it with any prompt. You should get a response within a few seconds.
Use Crade as normal
From this point on, every question you ask Crade is billed through your Claude subscription. The Crade UI does not change, but the AI behind it is Claude (Sonnet, Haiku, or Opus depending on the model you have access to).
What changes after you connect
- AI usage is billed by Anthropic, not Crade. Your Crade subscription tier (Free, Pro, Premium) still controls usage limits on the Crade side (daily caps) and Agent mode access.
- The screenshot goes directly from your computer to Anthropic, not through Crade's server.
- Responses come back in Crade's chat window as usual.
- You can disconnect any time in settings and go back to the built-in backend.
Troubleshooting
- OAuth window does not open: check that no browser tab is blocking pop-ups. Crade falls back to copying the URL to your clipboard if the open fails.
- Sign-in succeeds but Crade shows "not connected": restart Crade. The state sometimes does not refresh until reopen.
- First message after connect returns an error about "Consumer Terms": the Anthropic Grove notice. Crade auto-accepts it during connect on newer versions; if you are on an older Crade build, run claude in a terminal once to accept it manually, then it will work in Crade.
- Macbook with low file descriptor limit: error about "low max file descriptors" means your Mac's ulimit is too low. Run ulimit -n 65536 in a terminal and reopen Crade.
When to disconnect
- You let your Claude Pro subscription lapse (Crade prompts you to switch backend).
- You want to test Crade's built-in backend or your ChatGPT account instead.
- You hit Anthropic's rate limits and want to fall back to Crade's tiered backend.
The summary
OAuth flow is two clicks plus a browser sign-in. After that, your Claude Pro subscription becomes Crade's AI engine and you do not need a second AI bill.
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