Integrations & Models/Model Selection & Providers
Intermediate9 min

Third-Party Providers — Bedrock and Vertex

Run Claude through AWS Bedrock or Google Vertex AI for compliance, data residency, and existing cloud spend integration. The April 2026 interactive Bedrock setup wizard and modelOverrides feature make configuration significantly easier.

Quick Reference

  • →Bedrock: interactive wizard from login screen (April 2026) — replaces manual env var setup
  • →Vertex AI: /setup-vertex wizard + gcloud authentication
  • →modelOverrides (v2.1.73): maps standard model IDs to provider-specific ARNs or version strings
  • →ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL_SUPPORTED_CAPABILITIES: declare which features a pinned model supports
  • →Provider models may be slightly older — not all Claude features available on all providers
  • →Primary reasons: compliance, data residency, VPC access, existing AWS/GCP billing

Why Use Third-Party Providers

Most Claude Code users connect directly to Anthropic's API. Third-party providers make sense for a specific set of organizational requirements:

  • ▸Compliance requirements: data must stay within a specific cloud provider's infrastructure
  • ▸Data residency: regulation requires data to remain in a specific region or jurisdiction
  • ▸Existing cloud spend: AWS or GCP usage commitments that apply to Claude API calls
  • ▸VPC access: Claude must be accessible within a private network without public internet exposure
  • ▸Audit and logging: existing cloud provider audit tools must capture all AI API calls
When to stay on Anthropic direct

If you do not have a compliance, residency, or cloud spend reason to use a provider, stay on Anthropic direct. You get the latest models, full feature set, and a simpler setup.