claude-code-container

A minimalist solution to run Claude Code in a sandboxed throwaway container, safely isolated from your host system while still having access to your project and necessary credentials.

• Supports multiple simultaneous sessions on the same project.
• Telemetry is disabled (via CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC).
• Clipboard image paste works inside the container (macOS only) — use Ctrl+V to paste screenshots, images copied from a browser, or image files copied from Finder.

Design Decisions

• Single image — one image is built once and reused for every project, keeping disk usage low.
• Same-path mounts — the project directory and home paths are mounted at their exact host paths inside the container. This keeps file references, git context, and symlinks valid without any translation.
• Throwaway containers — each invocation starts a fresh container (--rm). No state is left behind between sessions beyond what is explicitly mounted.
• Selective mounts — only the minimum set of host paths needed for Claude Code to function are exposed. Optional paths (git config, SSH keys, etc.) are mounted read-only and only if they exist.
• No Node.js on the host — Claude Code and its dependencies live entirely inside the image.

Requirements

• Docker or Podman
• jq (recommended) — needed for proper profile isolation (strips account keys when creating profile settings). Without it, profiles get a full copy of the base settings including account info.

For clipboard image paste:

• macOS (the clipboard bridge relies on macOS-specific APIs)

• Python 3 (pre-installed on macOS; used to run the clipboard bridge server)

• pngpaste (recommended) — improves clipboard compatibility:

  brew install pngpaste

  Without it, the bridge falls back to AppleScript, which works but may be slower.

Setup

1. Build the image (once):

./build.sh

To pin a specific Claude Code version or tag the image:

CLAUDE_VERSION=1.2.3 ./build.sh         # pin Claude Code version
./build.sh staging                      # tag image as claude-code:staging

2. Install the launcher (once):

./install.sh

This symlinks run.sh to ~/.local/bin/claude.

To use a different command name (e.g. to keep a local claude install):

INSTALL_AS=claude-docker ./install.sh

Usage

# From any project directory:
claude

# Pass arguments directly:
claude --version
claude "explain this codebase"

# Start a named session (useful when returning back to it later via --resume):
claude --name "Add necessary tests"

# Update Claude Code to the latest version (doesn't interrupt ongoing sessions):
claude --update

Profiles

Use --profile <name> to maintain separate login credentials (e.g., for different Anthropic accounts):

# Work account
claude --profile work

# Personal account
claude --profile personal "explain this code"

# Default (no profile) — uses ~/.claude/.credentials.json normally
claude

Each profile stores its own credentials (~/.claude/.credentials.<name>.json) and settings (~/.claude.<name>.json), overlay-mounted on top of the originals inside the container. On first use, settings are copied from ~/.claude.json (with account-specific keys stripped; requires jq); credentials start empty so Claude Code will prompt you to log in.

# List profiles
ls ~/.claude/.credentials.*.json

# Remove a profile
rm ~/.claude/.credentials.<name>.json ~/.claude.<name>.json

What Gets Mounted

Path	Mode	Notes
Current directory	read/write	Mounted at the same absolute path
~/.claude/	read/write	Claude state and auth
~/.claude/.credentials.<profile>.json	read/write	Only with --profile; overlays .credentials.json
~/.claude.json	read/write	Claude settings
~/.claude.<profile>.json	read/write	Only with --profile; overlays ~/.claude.json
~/.cache/	read/write	Shared cache across sessions
~/.gitconfig	read-only	If it exists
~/.gitignore.global	read-only	If it exists
~/.ssh/	read-only	If it exists
~/.npmrc	read-only	If it exists
~/.config/gh	read-only	If it exists

Configuration

Config File

User-specific settings live in ~/.config/claude-code-container/config.ini (respects $XDG_CONFIG_HOME). The file uses simple INI-style sections.

[mounts] — extra paths to mount into the container, one per line in src:dst[:options] format:

[mounts]
# Shared notes directory (read/write)
/home/myuser/notes:/home/myuser/notes

# Read-only reference data
/home/myuser/datasets:/data:ro

[env] — extra environment variables to pass to the container, one KEY=value per line:

[env]
SOME_ENV_VAR=value

[profile.<name>.env] — profile-specific environment variables, only applied when --profile <name> is used. Useful for routing different profiles to different API endpoints:

[profile.personal.env]
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.example.com
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=xxx

Environment Variables

Environment variable	Default	Description
CLAUDE_DOCKER_IMAGE	claude-code:latest	Image name to use
CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR	~/.claude	Path to Claude config/state dir on host
INSTALL_DIR	~/.local/bin	Where install.sh places the symlink
INSTALL_AS	claude	Command name created by install.sh
CLIPBOARD_HOST	host.docker.internal	Hostname used by the container to reach the clipboard bridge server
CLIPBOARD_PORT	18256	TCP port used by the clipboard bridge server
CLIPBOARD_DEBUG	(unset)	Set to any value to enable clipboard debug logging

Pasting Images

Claude Code's Ctrl+V image paste is bridged to the macOS clipboard automatically. A lightweight Python server starts in the background on the host and exposes clipboard image data over TCP; shim scripts inside the container intercept xclip/wl-paste calls and forward them to it.

Supported sources:

• Screenshots (Cmd+Shift+3 / Cmd+Shift+4 / etc.)
• Images copied from a browser or any app
• Image files copied from Finder (PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP, TIFF)

Not supported: non-image files — pasting a .txt, etc. does nothing. For PDFs, use Claude Code's @-mention syntax instead: type @/path/to/file.pdf to bring a PDF into context.

See Requirements for host-side dependencies.

Custom API Endpoints

You can route a profile to a third-party Anthropic-compatible API by setting ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and related env vars in the profile's config section in ~/.config/claude-code-container/config.ini.

Z.ai GLM

[profile.glm.env]
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.z.ai/api/anthropic
ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=xxx
API_TIMEOUT_MS=300000
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL=glm-5.1
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL=glm-5
ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL=glm-4.7

claude --profile glm

Development

To enable verbose logging for the clipboard bridge, set CLIPBOARD_DEBUG:

CLIPBOARD_DEBUG=1 claude

Logs are written to:

• ~/.claude/clipboard-server.log — host-side server
• ~/.claude/clipboard-client.log — container-side shim

When modifying clipboard-server.py, the already-running server process won't pick up your changes automatically. Kill it so the next claude invocation starts a fresh instance:

pkill -f clipboard-server.py 2>/dev/null && echo "killed" || echo "not running"