Table of Contents

Getting Started

Prerequisites

  • .NET 8 or .NET 10
  • Claude Code installed and authenticated (claude login)
  • Or an Anthropic API key (sk-ant-api*) if you prefer explicit key auth

Installation

dotnet add package JD.SemanticKernel.Connectors.ClaudeCode

Also add Semantic Kernel if you haven't already:

dotnet add package Microsoft.SemanticKernel

Minimal example — use your local Claude Code session

using Microsoft.SemanticKernel;
using JD.SemanticKernel.Connectors.ClaudeCode;

var kernel = Kernel.CreateBuilder()
    .UseClaudeCodeChatCompletion()   // reads ~/.claude/.credentials.json
    .Build();

var result = await kernel.InvokePromptAsync("Explain async/await in two sentences.");
Console.WriteLine(result);

That's it. The package reads your local Claude Code session automatically.

Explicit API key override

If you prefer to supply a key directly — for CI/CD or environments without Claude Code installed:

var kernel = Kernel.CreateBuilder()
    .UseClaudeCodeChatCompletion(apiKey: "sk-ant-api...")
    .Build();

Choose a specific model

Use the ClaudeModels class for well-known model identifiers:

using JD.SemanticKernel.Connectors.ClaudeCode;

var kernel = Kernel.CreateBuilder()
    .UseClaudeCodeChatCompletion(ClaudeModels.Opus)
    .Build();

Available constants: ClaudeModels.Opus, ClaudeModels.Sonnet (default), ClaudeModels.Haiku.

The default model is claude-sonnet-4-6 (ClaudeModels.Default).

Handle session errors

ClaudeCodeSessionException is thrown if no valid credentials are found or if the session has expired. The message is safe to display to users:

try
{
    var kernel = Kernel.CreateBuilder()
        .UseClaudeCodeChatCompletion()
        .Build();
}
catch (ClaudeCodeSessionException ex)
{
    Console.Error.WriteLine(ex.Message);
    // "Claude session expired at 2025-11-01 09:00 UTC. Run 'claude login' to refresh."
}

Next steps

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