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tapes

Claude Code Setup

Launch Claude Code through tapes to capture every conversation automatically — no code changes.

Quick Start

The simplest way to capture Claude Code conversations:

tapes start claude

This automatically:

  • Starts the tapes daemon with auto-selected ports
  • Points Claude Code at the proxy via ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL
  • Tags all conversations with agent_name: claude
  • Shuts down cleanly when you exit Claude Code

Conversations are stored in the Postgres database you configure — see Manual Setup below, or tapes local up to bootstrap one.

Manual Setup

For control over ports and storage, run the proxy yourself and point Claude Code at it.

1. Start tapes

tapes serve \
  --provider anthropic \
  --upstream "https://api.anthropic.com" \
  --proxy-listen "0.0.0.0:8080" \
  --postgres "postgres://tapes:tapes@localhost:5432/tapes?sslmode=disable"

The --provider anthropic flag is required; the default provider is ollama.

2. Point Claude Code at the proxy

Add to your shell config (~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc), then reload:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="http://localhost:8080"
Match the base URL to the upstream path

A /v1 mismatch between --upstream and ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL causes 404s — both must use it or neither.

Upstream Base URL
https://api.anthropic.com http://localhost:8080
https://api.anthropic.com/v1 http://localhost:8080/v1

3. Run Claude Code

claude

To stop capturing, remove the ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL line and reload your shell.

Verify It's Working

After sending a message, confirm the session was captured:

tapes sessions

Your new session appears in the list, tagged agent_name: claude.

Troubleshooting

Conversations aren't captured

Confirm the base URL is set in the shell running Claude Code:

echo $ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL   # should print http://localhost:8080

404 errors

Your base URL and upstream disagree on the /v1 suffix. Match them (see the table above) so the proxy forwards to the right path.

Next Steps

Everything you capture is queryable the same way, whatever agent produced it:

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