How to Run Kimi K3 in Claude Code - Is It Better Than Claude?

[00:00:00]Kim K3 just dropped. It's open source and it beat Claude Fable 5 and GPT 5.6 in the front-end code arena. And the best part is that you can run it inside Claude Code, what you're already using in under a minute. There's no new app, the exact same commands. It's just a different cheaper model under the hood.

[00:00:15]So, I'm going to show you exactly how to set up step by step. Then, I'm going to show you it doing a real task. So, the first thing you want to do is come over to this website, platform.ke.ai.

[00:00:24]Obviously, these are the guys that created the model. So, you're going to come over here to create your API key, add credits to your account, and stuff like that. So, you want to go ahead and click get started, and then it's going to bring you over to the sign-in page where you want to create an account if you haven't already. I'm just going to go ahead and log in with Google. And then once you're logged in, it's going to bring you to your balance or your billing overview page. So, here you want to obviously add credits to your account because, of course, this isn't free, even though it is cheaper than Fable.

[00:00:48]So, you just want to add some credits to your account. They give you $5 voucher when you first sign up, but obviously I added an extra $5 to my account just to give me a bit more leeway. See, I've used a bit of it already. And once you've done that, you want to go over to the API keys section over here to create your API key. So, this is the key that's going to allow us to actually talk to key free. So, we're going to go over here and we're going to go create API key and we're just going to give it a name. So, I'm just going to call it key one. And then under project, there's going to be an option for you to just select default. So, we're just going to select default. Then, you're going to click okay. And then once you do that, it's going to give you your API key over here. And what you want to do with that is just copy it and save it for now.

[00:01:24]This is what we're going to paste into VS Code just in a second. So you're going to go ahead and copy that and you're going to click okay. Then you want to come back to VS Code and open a completely new folder, completely new project. And this is going to set up KBK3 to be used inside Claude Code. So the first thing you want to do is now when you're in a new project, we want to go ahead and create a folder with this button over here. And we're just going to call it Claude. And then under this folder, we're going to create a file for the settings that Claude Code is going to use. So, we're going to create a new file with this button over here. And we're going to call it settings.json.

[00:01:56]And then once you've created that file, you're going to go down into the description, and you're going to copy and paste this little block of settings that you're going to put into here for which Claude code is going to use. So, you're going to go down in there, copy that, and paste that in here. And then you're going to see this little line over here where it tells you to put your API key or your token, which is the one you just created. So, obviously, I've got mine. I'm going to go ahead and paste that into here. So, select that, get rid of it, paste it into here. And as soon as you've done that, you're pretty much done. So, for in this project, whenever I launch Claude now, it's going to go ahead and use Kimi K3 straight away. So, we can go ahead and test that out. So, I'm going to go ahead and open the terminal. And I'm going to start Claude Code with, of course, the word Claude. I'm going to go yes, I trust this folder. And then, as soon as we do that, we can see that we've got Kim K3 over here, API usage billing. And then I can go ahead and type in slash status. Send that off. And then we can see down here I'm using Kim K3. I can go ahead and test that it's working by just going hello. Send that off. And then of course I get a response from Kim K3 telling me that it's ready to go with whatever I want to do. Cool. So I've just gone ahead and shown you how to set up Kim K3 inside cloud code for a singular project. But like I just said, it's only going to work if you're in a specific folder that you set up in. So, for example, in here where I've got new folder 5, anytime I launch Claude Code within here, it's going to go ahead and use Kimik K3. But you might be asking, what if I want to use Kim K3 all the time across all my projects, and that's what I'm going to show you how to do next. So, this settings.json file is for this specific project, but there's another one that affects every single project that you open with Claw Code. If you're on Windows, I'm going to go ahead and show you exactly how to find it right now. I'm going to leave the instructions for Mac on screen in a second, but let's go ahead and show you how to do it for Windows. So, I'm going to open up file explorer first of all.

[00:03:36]And then I'm going to go into this PC and I'm going to go straight into my C drive. And then you're going to scroll down to where it says users, and you're going to double click that to open it.

[00:03:45]And you're going to select the one that you are. So, obviously, it's going to be your name most likely. I've just got mine set as user. So, you're going to double click that. And then you're going to scroll down until you see Claude. And this is going to hold obviously all the Claude code settings for this specific user. So, we're going to double click and go into that. And then you're going to scroll down until you see another file called settings.json. And then what we're [clears throat] going to do is double click it to go inside it. And then it's going to open up a file just like this. We can see that it's using JSON, which is obviously the exact same format as the other settings file. But of course, we need to paste our Kim K3 settings inside here. You're most likely already going to have settings in here, so you have to be careful with kind of how you format it and make sure you don't mess it up. But the easiest way to do that is you're first of all going to come over to the settings.json JSON file which you just created or you can just copy from the description once again.

[00:04:32]And you're just going to select from the start of this little inverted comma or these quotes just at the top over here.

[00:04:38]And you're going to select it all the way down to this other curly bracket over here. Then we're going to go ahead and copy that. And then we're going to come over to the other settings.json file. You're going to add a comma to the last field over here. And then you're going to hit enter to start a new line.

[00:04:52]And you're going to go ahead and paste the settings just into here. And when you do this, it's just going to make sure that the JSON format is all correct. It's not messed up. It's in the right shape so that when we save it, it doesn't mess up and it can actually launch launch Kim K3 correctly. So, we're going to go ahead and save that with Ctrl S. And then we can test it out by creating a new project. So, I'm going to go file. I'm going to go new window.

[00:05:13]And then what I'm going to do is just create a new project. So, I'm going to go file, open folder, and then I'm just going to create something random. I'm just going to go new folder. I'm going to go ki- test. Select that. And then I'm going to select folder and then it's going to open me and drop me in a new project. And then I'm going to launch claude code within here and just make sure that it's using K3. So I don't have to put the settings.json file in every single project I create. So in the terminal now I'm just going to go clude to launch claw code. I'm going to go yes, I trust this folder. And then when it comes up, we can see that I'm now using kim K3 and I'm pretty much using it everywhere where I launch Claude code on my machine. So I can test it again by going / status, sending that off. And then we can see at the bottom I'm now using again Kim K3. So that's ready to go. That's set up and we're all good. If I didn't do it already, you're going to follow the exact same steps. But if you're on Mac, you're going to go to this path over here. And that's where you're going to find your settings.json file to change the settings like I just showed you. But cool. Now that's all done. And now that you've got Kim K3 set up, I'm going to go ahead and perform an actual task of it just to see how good it is real quick. So, why don't we go ahead and create a landing page for a SAS, for example. So, this is the prompt that I'm using here. I've just got AI to generate it real quick. We're just going to build a responsive landing page for this SAS product that automatically detects store deals in your CRM. I've not defined any colors, any design scheme like that. It's just giving it the structure cuz I just want to see what KI K3 comes out with by its own accord. So, we're going to go ahead and copy this. I'm going to paste it into claw code. That's again using KI. And then we're going to send it off and we're going to see what it comes back with and see how good it is. Cool. So, we came back and this is what the website looks like. So, decent. It's not using in for once. Uh, it's kind of using that same gradient that the AI is still kind of used. So, it's not perfect, but of course, I didn't give it any direction. So, there's not much you can expect. If you scroll down, got some nice animations, some decent stuff there, decent content, and yeah, that's pretty much it. Pricing section. Yeah, that's basically it. So yeah, that was just a quick one. Quick and easy one just to show you how to set up Kimi K3 inside Clawude Code. If you do have any questions about how this works or anything else, just let me know in the comments and I'll respond as quick as possible. Yeah, if this was useful, make sure you like and subscribe for more videos like this and I'll catch you in the next one.