How to Run Doubao Seed Code With Claude Code

ByteDance’s Doubao Seed Code is a code-focused model aimed at the practical end of development — bug fixes, refactors, repo questions, structured edits — and it’s priced low. It’s served through Volcengine Ark, which is OpenAI-compatible, so the clean way to use it with Claude Code is through Claude Code Router.

This covers the connection, the model, and the pricing. For the router itself, see Claude Code Router setup on Windows.

Step 1: Get a Volcengine Ark key#

Sign up for Volcengine and enable Ark (the model platform that serves Doubao). Create an API key and note the model ID for Doubao Seed Code.

Step 2: Install Claude Code and the router#

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

On Windows, WSL gives the smoother shell — see the WSL install guide.

Step 3: Add Doubao to the router config#

Volcengine Ark is OpenAI-compatible. Add it as a provider in ~/.claude-code-router/config.json:

{
  "Providers": [
    {
      "name": "volcengine",
      "api_base_url": "https://ark.cn-beijing.volces.com/api/v3/chat/completions",
      "api_key": "$ARK_API_KEY",
      "models": ["doubao-seed-code"],
      "transformer": { "use": ["deepseek"] }
    }
  ],
  "Router": { "default": "volcengine,doubao-seed-code" }
}

Export the key and run:

export ARK_API_KEY="your-ark-key"
ccr code

The deepseek transformer often works for Ark-hosted models; confirm the exact endpoint and model ID in Volcengine’s docs, as they vary by region and release.

Step 4: Model choice#

For coding, Doubao Seed Code is the natural pick. The general Seed models suit broader tasks.

Pricing#

ByteDance prices the Doubao Seed family low — broadly an order of magnitude cheaper than Western frontier models on Volcengine, with the general Seed 2.0 Pro in the region of $0.47 input / $2.37 output per million (illustrative). Confirm current rates on Volcengine Ark’s pricing, since they vary by model and region.

Troubleshooting#

• Auth errors — ARK_API_KEY not set, or wrong region endpoint.
• Format/tool errors — try the deepseek transformer (or adjust per Volcengine’s format).
• “Model not found” — confirm the Doubao model ID on Volcengine.
• Config not applied — run ccr restart.

Wrapping up#

Running Doubao Seed Code with Claude Code means routing through Claude Code Router to Volcengine Ark: add the volcengine provider with Ark’s OpenAI-compatible endpoint and the Doubao model, and launch with ccr code. It’s a low-cost, practical coding model. Verify the endpoint, model ID, and rates in Volcengine’s docs.

To compare it against the budget benchmark, see Doubao Seed 2.0 Pro vs DeepSeek V4.