Deploying Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic's agentic coding tool. The claude-code runtime is bundled with Language Operator and installed automatically with the Helm chart. It exposes the A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocol, so any A2A-compatible orchestrator or agent can call it directly.

Prerequisites

• Language Operator installed
• An Anthropic API key (get one here)

Instructions

Get an API Key

1. Go to console.anthropic.com/settings/keys
2. Click Create Key, give it a name, and copy the key (sk-ant-...)

Claude Code makes direct API calls to Anthropic, so you need an API key with access to the model you want to use (e.g. claude-sonnet-4-5).

Create a Cluster

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: langop.io/v1alpha1
kind: LanguageCluster
metadata:
  name: demo-cluster
spec:
  domain: demo-cluster.<your-domain>
EOF

kubectl wait languagecluster/demo-cluster --for=condition=Ready --timeout=60s
kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=demo-cluster

Store Your API Key

kubectl create secret generic anthropic-credentials \
  --from-literal=ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key-here

Deploy Claude Code

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: langop.io/v1alpha1
kind: LanguageAgent
metadata:
  name: code-agent
spec:
  runtime: claude-code
  instructions: |
    You are an expert software engineer. Help with code review,
    debugging, and implementation tasks.
  claudeCode:
    apiKeyRef:
      name: anthropic-credentials
EOF

The apiKeyRef tells the operator to inject ANTHROPIC_API_KEY from your secret directly into the pod — traffic goes straight to Anthropic, bypassing the shared gateway.

Verify

kubectl get languageagents
kubectl get pods -w

Wait for the pod to reach Running and the LanguageAgent to show Ready=True.

Interact via A2A

The agent exposes the A2A protocol at its service endpoint. Submit a task:

# Get the in-cluster service address
SVC=$(kubectl get svc code-agent -o jsonpath='{.spec.clusterIP}')

# Check the agent card
curl http://$SVC:8080/.well-known/agent-card | jq .

# Submit a task
curl -X POST http://$SVC:8080/ \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "tasks/send",
    "params": {
      "message": {
        "role": "user",
        "parts": [{"type": "text", "text": "List the files in /workspace"}]
      }
    }
  }'

Streaming task responses use Server-Sent Events (tasks/sendSubscribe). Use tasks/get to poll task status by ID.

Using the Shared Gateway Instead

If you'd rather route Claude Code traffic through the shared LiteLLM gateway (e.g. to centralise billing or use a different provider), configure a LanguageModel instead of an apiKeyRef:

kubectl create secret generic anthropic-credentials \
  --from-literal=api-key=sk-ant-your-key-here

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: langop.io/v1alpha1
kind: LanguageModel
metadata:
  name: claude-sonnet
spec:
  provider: anthropic
  modelName: claude-sonnet-4-5
  apiKeySecretRef:
    name: anthropic-credentials
    key: api-key
---
apiVersion: langop.io/v1alpha1
kind: LanguageAgent
metadata:
  name: code-agent
spec:
  runtime: claude-code
  instructions: |
    You are an expert software engineer.
  models:
    - name: claude-sonnet
EOF

The adapter will set ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL to the shared gateway and the operator injects a placeholder key. No claudeCode.apiKeyRef is needed.

Configuration Reference

Field	Description
spec.claudeCode.apiKeyRef.name	Secret containing ANTHROPIC_API_KEY. Recommended for direct Anthropic access.
spec.claudeCode.apiKey	Inline API key (stored in a managed Secret). Use apiKeyRef instead if the key is already in a Secret.
spec.claudeCode.maxTurns	Max agentic turns per request. Sets CLAUDE_CODE_MAX_TURNS.
spec.claudeCode.enabled	Set automatically by the claude-code runtime. No need to set this manually.

What the Operator Created

Resource	Name	Purpose
Deployment	code-agent	Runs the Claude Code server container
Service	code-agent	ClusterIP on port 8080
NetworkPolicy	code-agent	Allows inbound from other agents in this namespace
PVC	code-agent-workspace	10Gi persistent workspace; task store at /workspace/.a2a/
ConfigMap	code-agent-agent	Injected at /etc/agent/config.yaml