nodx-lens-gateway

Local AI gateway that lets nodx Lens (Chrome extension) and nodx desktop run on your Claude Code CLI — your existing Claude subscription or key, with no API key pasted anywhere.

It listens on 127.0.0.1:8787 and shells out to claude -p (your locally-authenticated Claude Code session) for each request. Zero npm dependencies.

Prerequisites

• Node.js ≥ 18
• Claude Code CLI installed and logged in (claude works in your terminal)

Use with nodx Lens (Chrome extension)

npx nodx-lens-gateway

Then in the extension's ⚙ Settings → AI Provider → nodx (local gateway). That's it — "Ask AI", explanations, and custom instructions now run through your local Claude. Keep the terminal window open while you use it.

Options

| Env var | Default | Meaning | |---|---|---| | PORT | 8787 | Listen port (the extension and nodx desktop expect 8787) | | CLI_GATEWAY_HOST | 127.0.0.1 | Bind address — loopback only by default; don't expose it | | CLI_GATEWAY_TOKEN | (unset) | Optional bearer token the clients must send |

What it does / doesn't do

• ✅ Text + vision completions via claude -p (POST /v1/complete, GET /health)
• ✅ Tools locked down — the spawned CLI gets an empty allowedTools list (it cannot touch your filesystem); web search is enabled only when a request asks for it
• ❌ Embeddings (POST /v1/embed → 501) — nodx desktop's CBR retrieval degrades gracefully
• ⏱ Each call cold-starts a claude process (~5–7 s overhead) — fine for on-demand explanations, not for bulk jobs

Legitimacy note

This drives the Claude Code CLI you are licensed to run, as local automation. It does not extract or replay OAuth tokens against the Anthropic API.

Source

Part of the nodx monorepo — workers/cli-gateway.