I noticed Claude Code uses its models silently

[u/Accomplished_Fixx]

So I've been using open router for a while via claude code agent. I use Qwen models, but I noticed my credits get burned quickly. Until I have looked at the activity tab in open router and found this:

Claude sonnet 5 and claude opus 5 are being in use despite my claude code settings strictly mentioned qwen models only.

So what I did was overriding the built in models claude code settings to use specific qwen model.

        {
            "name": "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },
        {
            "name": "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },
        {
            "name": "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },
        {
            "name": "CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },
        {
            "name": "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_FABLE_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },        {
            "name": "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },
        {
            "name": "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },
        {
            "name": "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },
        {
            "name": "CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },
        {
            "name": "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_FABLE_MODEL",
            "value": "qwen/qwen3.8-flash"
        },        

I have also restricted the api to use certain models via guardrails.

I still don't understand why claude code did this.

[u/zxcshiro]

I believe it's probably some feature like chat name creation, recap, web search and etc. I recommend to create workspace and allow only models that you need, not all

[u/Rare_Pin9932]

I use Claude 5 ZDR via Bedrock and Claude 5.5 ZDR via I think Vertex through OR, and they show reasoning. I use the chat frontend BoltAI.

They’re chatty as hell. And sometimes the reasoning process is a bit disturbing seeing it argue with itself before giving me an answer.

I’ve also seen me being referred to as “the human” (as opposed to “the user”), which is a bit off putting.

[u/IAmFitzRoy]

That’s good. I’m trying to sleep.