So you have heard people rave about Claude Code. Maybe you have also heard people mention OpenRouter in the same breath, usually followed by some combination of environment variables and a screenshot of a terminal. If you are new to any of this, it can feel like everyone skipped a step and jumped straight to the jargon. This guide is that missing step. We will go slow where it matters, explain the confusing bits, and by the end you will actually understand what is happening instead of just co...