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Anthropic Setup

Use Anthropic's Claude models with DevDiff for nuanced, safety-aware changelog analysis.

Privacy Note: When using Anthropic, your diff content is sent to Anthropic's servers. See Privacy Guarantees for how DevDiff's data classification engine protects sensitive data before transmission.


Prerequisites

  1. An Anthropic account
  2. An API key from console.anthropic.com/settings/keys

Setup

1. Get Your API Key

  1. Go to console.anthropic.com
  2. Navigate to SettingsAPI Keys
  3. Click Create Key
  4. Copy the key — it starts with sk-ant-

2. Set the Environment Variable

bash
# Add to your shell profile
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-your-key-here"

# Or create a .env file
echo 'ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key-here' >> .env

Never commit your API key to Git. Add .env to your .gitignore.

3. Configure DevDiff

javascript
// .devdiff.config.js
export default {
  ai: {
    providers: [
      {
        name: "anthropic-claude",
        url: "anthropic://claude-3-5-haiku-20241022",
        priority: 1,
      },
    ],
  },
};

4. Generate Changelog

bash
devdiff generate

Available Models

ModelCostSpeedQualityBest For
claude-3-5-haiku-20241022Very lowVery fastGreatDaily use, most diffs
claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022MediumFastExcellentComplex analysis
claude-opus-4-5HighMediumBestDeep architectural reviews
javascript
// Use a specific model
{
  url: "anthropic://claude-3-5-haiku-20241022";
}
{
  url: "anthropic://claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022";
}

Why Use Claude for Changelogs?

Claude models excel at:

  • Long context — handles large diffs without truncation
  • Nuanced reasoning — explains why a change matters, not just what changed
  • Safety-aware — naturally flags security-sensitive changes
  • Structured output — reliably follows the changelog format

Using Claude as a Fallback

javascript
// .devdiff.config.js
export default {
  ai: {
    providers: [
      { name: "local", url: "ollama://llama3.2:3b", priority: 1 },
      {
        name: "anthropic",
        url: "anthropic://claude-3-5-haiku-20241022",
        priority: 2,
      },
    ],
  },
};

Troubleshooting

"Invalid API key"

bash
echo $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

# Test directly
curl https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"claude-3-5-haiku-20241022","max_tokens":10,"messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hi"}]}'

"Credit balance too low"

"Overloaded"

  • Anthropic API can be busy during peak hours
  • DevDiff auto-retries
  • Add Ollama as a local fallback