Two live users in #claw-code on 2026-04-08 hit adjacent auth confusion:
varleg set OPENAI_API_KEY for OpenRouter but prefix routing didn't
activate without openai/ model prefix, and stanley078852 put sk-ant-*
in ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN (Bearer path) instead of ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
(x-api-key path) and got 401 Invalid bearer token.
Changes:
1. ApiError::MissingCredentials gained optional hint field (error.rs)
2. anthropic_missing_credentials_hint() sniffs OPENAI/XAI/DASHSCOPE
env vars and suggests prefix routing when present (providers/mod.rs)
3. All 4 Anthropic auth paths wire the hint helper (anthropic.rs)
4. 401 + sk-ant-* in bearer token detected and hint appended
5. 'Which env var goes where' section added to USAGE.md
Tests: unit tests for all three improvements (no HTTP calls needed).
Workspace: all tests green, fmt clean, clippy warnings-only.
Source: live users varleg + stanley078852 in #claw-code 2026-04-08.
Co-authored-by: gaebal-gajae <gaebal-gajae@layofflabs.com>
Document the qwen/ and qwen- prefix routing added in 3ac97e6. Users
in Discord #clawcode-get-help (web3g, Renan Klehm, matthewblott) kept
hitting ambient-credential misrouting because the docs only showed
the OPENAI_BASE_URL pattern without explaining that model-name prefix
wins over env-var presence.
Added:
- DashScope usage section with qwen/qwen-max and bare qwen-plus examples
- DashScope row in provider matrix table
- Reasoning model sanitization note (qwen-qwq, qwq-*, *-thinking)
- Explicit statement that model-name prefix wins over ambient creds
- Anthropic-compat (ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL + ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN)
- OpenAI-compat (OPENAI_BASE_URL + OPENAI_API_KEY)
- ollama example with concrete curl
- OpenRouter example with model selection
Addresses community requests for local model setup guidance.
The root and Rust-facing docs now point readers at a single task-oriented usage guide with build, auth, CLI, session, and parity-harness examples. This also fixes stale workspace references and updates the Rust workspace inventory to match the current crate set.
Constraint: Existing README copy still referenced the old dev/rust status and needed to stay lightweight
Rejected: Fold all usage details into README.md only | too much noise for the landing page
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: narrow
Reversibility: clean
Directive: Keep USAGE examples aligned with when CLI flags change
Tested: cargo build --workspace; cargo test --workspace
Not-tested: External links and rendered Markdown in GitHub UI
