Choose how your Claude sessions sign in

What it is

Omniscio gives you a choice of how your Claude (Anthropic) sessions authenticate — a single sign-in method that applies to every Claude session you run. You pick it in Settings → Accounts → the Claude tab, and there are up to three methods:

1. Managed accounts — Omniscio holds one or more Anthropic logins and/or API keys as a pool and picks the freshest one for each session (add, switch, load-balance, auto-recover from rate limits). This is the multi-account experience described in add-a-claude-account.md and account-pool.md. It only appears when it's available to you — a fresh install that has never added an account won't see it (see below).
2. Your API key — you paste your own Anthropic API key into a dedicated, isolated slot, and your Claude sessions run directly on Anthropic's API with that one key. No login, no pool, no switching — Omniscio never treats it as an account. You get a key at console.anthropic.com.
3. Claude Code login — you sign in with your own Claude account by running claude auth login in a terminal, and Omniscio simply lets that login (~/.claude) power your sessions. Omniscio injects nothing and stores and tracks nothing about that credential. During first-run setup, choosing "Sign in with your Claude account" opens this claude auth login for you automatically (so you don't have to run it by hand).

The three methods are completely separate. Whichever one you pick is the only thing that credentials your Claude sessions — the other two are never touched. In particular, "Your API key" and "Claude Code login" never reach into the managed pool, and the managed pool never leaks into them.

This is Anthropic-only. The sign-in method changes how your Claude sessions authenticate and nothing else. Every other provider — Codex, Gemini, and the rest — keeps its own separate login or key and is completely unaffected no matter which method you choose.

Where to find it

How to use it

1. Open Settings → Accounts and go to the Claude tab. At the top you'll see the sign-in method picker — a small segmented control with the methods available to you. Your API key and Claude Code login are always there; Managed accounts is shown first only if it's available to you (see the next section).

2. Pick the method you want. Because switching your sign-in method changes how every Claude session authenticates, Omniscio shows a "switch your sign-in method?" confirmation first. Confirm it and the change applies to all your Claude sessions going forward; cancel and nothing changes.

3. Fill in what that method needs. The area below the picker shows exactly the one thing the selected method requires:

   • Your API key → a password-style box to paste your sk-ant-... key (it's stored encrypted on your machine, never shown back to you, and never sent to the browser). Get one at console.anthropic.com.
   • Claude Code login → a short guidance card reminding you to run claude auth login in your own terminal. There's nothing to paste — Omniscio uses the login the CLI already wrote to ~/.claude.
   • Managed accounts → nothing extra here; your account rows live in the rest of the Accounts page (add-a-claude-account.md).

4. That's it — it applies everywhere. There's no per-session choice. The method you pick credentials every new Claude session you start.

How it behaves

How it works

Your choice is a single setting that both the UI and the session-spawn path read through the same resolver, so what the Settings tab shows is exactly how your sessions will be signed in — they can never disagree. When you choose Your API key, that key is injected as the session's ANTHROPIC_API_KEY from its own isolated slot and never mixes with any account. When you choose Claude Code login, Omniscio injects no credential at all and the claude CLI falls back to its own ~/.claude login. When you choose Managed accounts, sessions use the account pool exactly as before.

Why "Managed accounts" might not appear. Managing multiple Anthropic logins as a shared pool is an owner/internal capability, so it's hidden by default. It shows up only when it's genuinely available to you — most commonly because your install already has at least one Claude account (so nothing you were using disappears), or because an owner has turned it on for you. On a brand-new install with no accounts, you'll see just the two personal methods, and Omniscio defaults you to Your API key rather than the pool. When you're on a personal method (Your API key or Claude Code login), the managed account rows and the "Log In with Anthropic" button are hidden entirely — you see exactly one Claude credential entry point, that method's single field — while the always-available "Other AI tools" list and its toggle stay put. Only the Anthropic credential is governed this way; every other provider is untouched.

How Omniscio knows you're set up. All three methods count as being signed in — the account badge in the header, and the "you haven't set up an account yet" banner and startup reminder, each recognise whichever method you're on. That matters most right after first-run setup: Your API key and Claude Code login deliberately store nothing in the account list, so before this they were mistaken for "no account at all" and you'd be asked to sign in again despite having just done it. Omniscio also re-checks your credential the moment setup closes, so a claude auth login you completed in the terminal mid-setup is picked up straight away rather than only on the next restart. If you skipped sign-in entirely, or picked Your API key without pasting one, the reminder still appears — it's telling you something true.

Related

• add-a-claude-account.md — the "Managed accounts" method in depth: adding Claude.ai logins or an API key to the pool
• switch-active-account.md — within the managed pool, how Omniscio picks and switches the active account per session
• account-pool.md — the tier-list the managed pool uses to choose an account
• remove-a-claude-account.md — taking a managed account back out
• switching-providers.md — using a different provider (Codex, Gemini, …) for a session; those are unaffected by your Claude sign-in method