GLM Delegation

Overview

GLM ships no CLI of its own. Z.ai serves an Anthropic-compatible endpoint, so the stock claude binary reaches GLM by changing two environment variables and nothing else. This is the endpoint-swap archetype: the redirection is environment, never argv.

GLM-5.3 was released on 2026-08-14 and claims a large coding gain over GLM-5.2 from post-training alone.

When To Use

• delegation-core selected glm for the task
• A 1M-token context is wanted through glm-5.3[1m]
• A GLM Coding Plan subscription should absorb the work instead of the Anthropic quota

When NOT To Use

• ZAI_API_KEY is unset. Verification refuses rather than sending an unauthenticated request
• The claude binary is not installed. GLM has no fallback CLI
• A pinned GLM-5.3 identifier is required in a script that must not break: see the rollout note below

Prerequisites

Installation

Only the stock Claude Code binary is needed:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Authentication

export ZAI_API_KEY="<your-zai-key>"

The delegation service builds the child environment from that one variable. Z.ai requires ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, not ANTHROPIC_API_KEY. Putting the key in the wrong one is the most common way to get a 401 here, so the service names the correct variable and the overlay references ${ZAI_API_KEY} rather than storing a secret.

Quick Start

Using the shared delegation executor

uv run python scripts/delegation_executor.py glm "Review this design" \
  --files docs/

Through the Makefile

make -C plugins/conjure delegate-glm PROMPT='Review this design'

Direct CLI usage

ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.z.ai/api/anthropic \
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="$ZAI_API_KEY" \
claude --model glm-5.3 -p "Review this design"

Smart Delegation

glm declares code_execution and large_context strengths and ranks behind gemini, qwen and minimax in the candidate order. It declares glm-5.3 as its default, glm-5.3[1m] for large context, and glm-4.7 for fast response.

GLM-Specific Details

Property	Value
Binary	claude (stock)
Base URL	https://api.z.ai/api/anthropic
Auth variable	ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, from ZAI_API_KEY
Default model	glm-5.3
Large context	glm-5.3[1m]
OpenAI-compatible URL	https://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4

The [1m] suffix is what unlocks the 1M-token window. Omitting it is a documented setup mistake. Pair it with CLAUDE_CODE_AUTO_COMPACT_WINDOW=1000000 when driving claude directly.

Two operational notes. Environment changes only take effect in a freshly launched shell, so an already-open session keeps reaching Anthropic's real endpoint. And claude shows a first-run trust prompt when it sees a non-Anthropic base URL. The -p non-interactive form this service uses does not block on it.

Rollout caveat: at the time of writing, docs.z.ai/devpack/latest-model documented glm-5.3 while docs.z.ai/guides/llm/glm-5.3 still read "coming soon" and the base connection page still showed glm-5.2. GLM_52 stays defined for that reason, and glm-4.7 remains the fast-response id rather than being promoted on assumption.

The same archetype generalizes: MiniMax, Moonshot/Kimi, DeepSeek and OpenRouter all expose Anthropic-compatible endpoints, so adding one is a ServiceConfig with a different base URL.

Exit Criteria

• claude resolves on PATH and answers claude --version
• ZAI_API_KEY is set, and --verify reports the service available rather than naming an unset variable
• The built command contains no z.ai URL: the endpoint travels in the child environment, not argv
• The child environment carries ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, not ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
• Output saved to delegations/glm/YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.md
• This skill ran because delegation-core selected glm