[schowave]

What and why

In a Claude Code session started by llmenu, /model only offered the three slots (Opus/Sonnet/Haiku). Switching to any other gateway model meant restarting llmenu.

All gateway models in /model

llmenu passes the gateway's models as modelPicker in the session's --settings, merged with the status line (Claude Code takes only one --settings):

• no aliases or duplicates, sorted like the menu (catalog.Sort, moved out of cli)
• description with context, prices (incl. the long-prompt tier) and the configured benchmark, e.g. 1M · $4.40 in / $22.00 out · intelligence 57.6; unknown context is left out
• [1m] from 900k context; behavesAs only where the shortened target is a valid Anthropic ID (claude-opus-5-5, not claude-3-5-sonnet without its date)
• replaceBuiltInOptions: true; Claude still shows "Default" and the current model
• the settings go to a file in the cache directory (claude-settings.json), not inline: with a few hundred models the JSON would exceed Windows' command line limit (8191 characters through claude.cmd). Rewritten only when it changes, inline as a fallback, removed by llmenu reset
• own --settings still win
• new key claude.picker, on by default

Verified against the real Claude Code 2.1.301 via the fake gateway: all models show up, no startup error, picking with s switches the session (/status shows azure/gpt-6-sol[1m]).

Known caveat, accepted on purpose: picking with Enter makes Claude Code itself save the gateway model ID in ~/.claude/settings.json (llmenu writes nothing there). A plain claude on the subscription then fails on the first prompt with "There's an issue with the selected model … Run /model", and one /model fixes it. With the built-in slots Claude saves the alias instead, so this is new. A watcher that reverts the file was considered and rejected: it would write to ~/.claude and still leave gaps. README (usage and troubleshooting) and ADR-0002 document this.

Status line on by default

claude.statusline becomes optional like auto_compact: unset means on, only off is stored, and setup preselects yes. Your own status line keeps running, and llmenu adds its line below it.

Note for existing users: the old setting was a plain bool with omitempty, so a "No" from an earlier setup was never written. Those users get the status line now and can turn it off with llmenu config set claude.statusline false.

Review fixes

• optBool helper replaces the copied auto_compact/picker/statusline key blocks
• the check for own --settings now runs before llmenu's settings are built
• an unknown benchmark metric is named "intelligence", the value Model.Score uses for it
• the launch test checks the argument order again

Tests: the fake claude in the script tests prints --settings (file or inline) as @settings plus readable lines. New tests are TestClaudeSettings and the script checks for the settings file, claude.picker false and claude.statusline false.

Checklist

• mise run ci passes locally
• Tests added or updated for changed behavior
• Docs updated (README, CONTRIBUTING, ADR) if user-facing behavior or a decision changed

🤖 Generated with Claude Code