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The in-app configuration window is the recommended way to configure Claude Desktop for third-party inference. It validates values as you enter them, shows exactly which fields your inference provider requires, tests the connection against your endpoint, and computes the network egress allowlist for your settings, so you don’t have to hand-edit JSON, plists, or registry keys.

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Open the configuration window

From the macOS menu bar (or on Windows, the application menu ☰ in the top-left of the sign-in screen), go to Help → Troubleshooting → Enable Developer Mode, then Developer → Configure Third-Party Inference…. If you turn on Developer mode while the app is running a third-party configuration, it stays on across restarts. If you turned it on before that, the Developer menu is gone once the app relaunches into a third-party configuration, for example after Apply Changes. Go to Help → Troubleshooting → Enable Developer Mode again, and it stays on from then on. If the configuration sets developerModeEnabled to false, neither that item nor the Developer menu appears. To turn Developer mode off again, go to Developer → Open Developer Config File, change "allowDevTools": true to false in the file that opens (or delete the file), save it, then quit and reopen Claude Desktop. The Developer menu is gone on the next launch.
Claude Desktop in-app configuration window with the sidebar of setting groups on the left and the Connection form on the right.

The in-app configuration window, showing the Connection section for a gateway provider.

The sidebar groups settings the same way the configuration reference does. Fill in Connection first, then work down through the sections your deployment needs.

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Apply locally or export for a fleet

Use Apply Changes to write the configuration to this device only and relaunch into it. This is the single-machine setup path for evaluation and pilots. Use the Export menu to generate deployment artifacts for a fleet: See Deploy with MDM or Deploy with a bootstrap server to distribute what you exported. When a managed profile is already present on the device, the window opens in read-only mode and shows the deployed values. Author new configurations from a device without a managed profile.