cc-gateway

Take back control of your AI API telemetry

Alpha — This project is under active development. Test with a non-primary account first.

Disclaimer — This software is provided for security research and privacy auditing purposes. It is the user's responsibility to comply with applicable terms of service. The authors assume no liability for misuse.

Why

Claude Code collects 640+ telemetry event types across 3 parallel channels, fingerprints your machine with 40+ environment dimensions, and phones home every 5 seconds. Your device ID, email, OS version, installed runtimes, shell type, CPU architecture, and physical RAM are all reported to the vendor — continuously.

If you run Claude Code on multiple machines, each device gets a unique permanent identifier. There is no built-in way to manage how your identity is presented to the API.

CC Gateway is a reverse proxy that sits between Claude Code and the Anthropic API. It normalizes device identity, environment fingerprints, and process metrics to a single canonical profile — giving you control over what telemetry leaves your network.

Features

• Full identity rewrite — device ID, email, session metadata, and the user_id JSON blob in every API request are normalized to one canonical identity
• 40+ environment dimensions replaced — platform, architecture, Node.js version, terminal, package managers, runtimes, CI flags, deployment environment — the entire env object is swapped, not patched
• System prompt sanitization — the <env> block injected into every prompt (Platform, Shell, OS Version, working directory) is rewritten to match the canonical profile, preventing cross-reference detection between telemetry and prompt content
• Process metrics normalization — physical RAM (constrainedMemory), heap size, and RSS are masked to canonical values so hardware differences don't leak
• Centralized OAuth — the gateway manages token refresh internally; client machines never contact platform.claude.com and never need a browser login
• Telemetry leak prevention — strips baseUrl and gateway fields that would reveal proxy usage in analytics events
• Three-layer defense architecture — env vars (voluntary routing) + Clash rules (network-level blocking) + gateway rewriting (identity normalization)

Quick Start

1. Install and configure

git clone https://github.com/motiful/cc-gateway.git
cd cc-gateway
npm install

# Generate canonical identity
npm run generate-identity
# Generate a client token
npm run generate-token my-machine

# Configure
cp config.example.yaml config.yaml
# Edit config.yaml: paste device_id, client token, and OAuth refresh_token

2. Extract OAuth token (on a machine that has logged into Claude Code)

bash scripts/extract-token.sh
# Copies refresh_token from macOS Keychain → paste into config.yaml

3. Start the gateway

# Development (no TLS)
npm run dev

# Production
npm run build && npm start

# Docker
docker-compose up -d

4. Verify

# Health check
curl http://localhost:8443/_health

# Rewrite verification (shows before/after diff)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <your-token>" http://localhost:8443/_verify

Client Setup

Add these environment variables on each client machine. No browser login needed.

# Route all Claude Code traffic through the gateway
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://gateway.your-domain.com:8443"

# Disable side-channel telemetry (Datadog, GrowthBook, version checks)
export CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC=1

# Skip browser OAuth — gateway handles authentication
export CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN="gateway-managed"

# Authenticate to the gateway
export ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS="Proxy-Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

Or run the interactive setup script:

bash scripts/client-setup.sh

Then start Claude Code normally — claude — no login prompt, traffic routes through the gateway automatically.

What Gets Rewritten

Clash Rules

Clash acts as a network-level safety net. Even if Claude Code bypasses env vars or adds new hardcoded endpoints in a future update, Clash blocks direct connections.

rules:
  - DOMAIN,gateway.your-domain.com,DIRECT    # Allow gateway
  - DOMAIN-SUFFIX,anthropic.com,REJECT        # Block direct API
  - DOMAIN-SUFFIX,claude.com,REJECT           # Block OAuth
  - DOMAIN-SUFFIX,claude.ai,REJECT            # Block OAuth
  - DOMAIN-SUFFIX,datadoghq.com,REJECT        # Block telemetry

See clash-rules.yaml for the full template.

Architecture

Client machines                        CC Gateway                    Anthropic
┌────────────┐                    ┌──────────────────┐
│  Claude Code │── ANTHROPIC_ ────│  Auth: Bearer     │
│  + env vars  │   BASE_URL       │  OAuth: auto-     │
│  + Clash     │                  │    refresh        │──── single ────▶ api.anthropic.com
│  (blocks     │                  │  Rewrite: all     │     identity
│   direct)    │                  │    identity       │
└────────────┘                    │  Stream: SSE      │
                                  │    passthrough    │
                                  └──────────────────┘
                                         │
                                   platform.claude.com
                                   (token refresh only,
                                    from gateway IP)

Defense in depth:

Caveats

• MCP servers — mcp-proxy.anthropic.com is hardcoded and does not follow ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL. If clients use official MCP servers, those requests bypass the gateway. Use Clash to block this domain if MCP is not needed.
• CC updates — New Claude Code versions may introduce new telemetry fields or endpoints. Monitor Clash REJECT logs for unexpected connection attempts after upgrades.
• Token lifecycle — The gateway auto-refreshes the OAuth access token. If the underlying refresh token expires (rare), re-run extract-token.sh on the admin machine.

References

This project builds on:

• Claude Code 封号机制深度探查报告 — Reverse-engineering analysis of Claude Code's 640+ telemetry events, 40+ fingerprint dimensions, and ban detection mechanisms
• instructkr/claude-code — Deobfuscated Claude Code source used for the telemetry audit

License

MIT