Set up the point-and-click Claude Desktop app in Cowork third-party-inference mode through Cornell's gateway.

Claude Desktop (Cowork) on Cornell's Gateway — Mac & PC

This is the point-and-click app version. It uses a mode called Cowork on third-party inference (3P), which routes everything through Cornell's AI gateway.

Before you start, have your prerequisites ready — especially your personal key. See Using Claude on Cornell's AI Gateway — Start Here.

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Step 1 — Install Claude Desktop

⚠️ You may be prompted for admin permission. On a PC, approve with your local administrator account. On a Mac, open Self Service and grant temporary admin rights first.

1. Go to https://claude.com/download.
2. Download the installer for your computer — Mac gets a .dmg, PC gets a .msix. On the download page, Windows lists two builds: pick Windows for a standard Intel/AMD PC, or Windows (arm 64) for an ARM device (e.g. a Surface or Snapdragon laptop). If unsure which you have, choose Windows.
3. Run the installer and follow the prompts.

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Step 2 — Open the gateway configuration screen

Launch Claude Desktop. Do not sign in to a personal account. Instead:

🍎 Mac

Help → Troubleshooting → Enable Developer Mode, then Developer → Configure third-party inference.

🪟 PC

Click the menu (☰) → Help → Troubleshooting → Enable Developer Mode, then Developer → Configure third-party inference.

On PC, the same items live under the ☰ menu:

Then open Developer → Configure third-party inference:

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Step 3 — Fill in the Connection settings

In the configuration window, open the Connection section and enter:

Field	What to enter
Connection	Gateway
Credential kind	Static API key
Gateway base URL	https://api.ai.it.cornell.edu
Gateway API key	your personal key (the sk-… value)
Gateway auth scheme	bearer

You can press Test connection (top-right of the credentials card) to confirm the key and URL work before continuing.

You don't need to list the models by hand. Scroll to the Models section and leave Model discovery turned on — Claude Desktop reads the available models from the gateway at launch. Press Test model discovery to confirm; you should see the Cornell models (including claude-sonnet-4-6, claude-opus-4-8, and claude-haiku-4-5) appear.

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Step 4 — Turn off non-essential telemetry

Open the Telemetry & updates section and turn on these toggles (each one blocks that category of data from leaving your computer):

• Block nonessential telemetry — product/usage analytics.
• Block nonessential services — cosmetic web fetches. ⚠️ This also stops artifact previews and connector icons from rendering in conversations.

Optional:

• Block essential telemetry — crash and error reports. Turning this on maximizes privacy, but slows diagnosis of gateway-specific failures.

See Privacy — What We Turned Off and Why for what each one means.

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Step 5 — Apply and confirm

1. Click Apply and restart Claude Desktop when prompted.
2. On relaunch, the app should take you straight into Cowork — no personal sign-in.
3. Ask it something simple, like Say hello.

On relaunch, the app confirms it's running through the gateway with no Claude.ai account:

…and drops you straight into Cowork:

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How do I know it worked?

• After restart, you land directly in Cowork without a claude.ai sign-in screen.
• Claude answers your prompt.
• The three Cornell models are available to choose from.

If anything failed, see Claude on Cornell's Gateway — Troubleshooting.

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Note for IT / advanced users: the same configuration can be pushed to managed machines automatically (no per-user setup) via MDM. See IT / MDM Reference.