[FEATURE] Native UI to switch Claude Desktop between 1P and 3P/Gateway inference modes

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

Claude Desktop supports both first-party (1P, Anthropic direct) and third-party (3P, Bedrock/Vertex/Foundry/Gateway) inference modes. However, switching between them currently feels asymmetric and difficult to discover.

Switching to 3P has a documented path:

• Help → Troubleshooting → Enable Developer Mode
• Developer → Configure third-party inference
• Apply locally → app relaunches in 3P mode

Switching back to 1P does not appear to have an equivalent documented path:

• No UI toggle is visible
• No "restore" or "switch to 1P" command is visible in the app
• The Cowork 3P|Gateway indicator in the bottom-left shows the current mode, but does not provide a clickable way to change it
• Users may need to manually delete local state directories such as Claude-3p and Claude Nest-3p from %LOCALAPPDATA% on Windows, or from ~/Library/Application Support/ on macOS
• Manual filesystem cleanup is difficult to discover and can risk data loss if users delete the wrong state

This makes 3P/Gateway experimentation feel like a one-way path. Users who try 3P mode, for example via ollama launch claude-desktop, GitHub Copilot Gateway, or Bedrock, may not know how to return to their normal 1P workflow without troubleshooting local application state.

Proposed Solution

Add a native, supported way to switch Claude Desktop between 1P and 3P/Gateway inference modes.

Possible approaches:

Option A: Settings menu

• Settings → Inference → Mode: 1P (Anthropic) / 3P (custom)
• Switching modes shows a confirmation dialog and restarts the app if needed

Option B: Developer menu

• Developer → Switch to first-party (1P) mode
• Developer → Switch to third-party (3P) mode

Option C: Sign-in screen

• When in 3P mode, the sign-in screen already offers "Start in Cowork on 3P"
• Add a parallel "Use Anthropic direct" option that cleanly restores 1P mode

The important part is that returning to 1P should be a supported in-product flow, not something users have to discover by deleting local state directories.

Alternative Solutions

Documentation-only fix:

• Document the manual cleanup steps for each platform
• This would help, but it is not ideal because manual filesystem operations are error-prone for non-technical users

CLI-only fix:

• Add a command such as claude --restore-1p
• This would help CLI users, but would still be hard to discover for Claude Desktop / Cowork users who primarily interact with the app UI

Current workaround:

• Manually delete Claude-3p and Claude Nest-3p local state directories
• This works, but it is not discoverable from the app and can be risky if users remove the wrong data

For comparison, Ollama provides ollama launch claude-desktop --restore to handle its side of the configuration. Claude Desktop should still provide its own native UI or supported command for switching back to 1P mode.

Priority

Medium - Would be very helpful

Feature Category

Configuration and settings

Use Case Example

Example scenario:

1. I normally use Claude Desktop in 1P / Anthropic direct mode.
2. I run ollama launch claude-desktop to evaluate local Ollama models.
3. Claude Desktop switches into 3P/Gateway mode.
4. I decide the experiment is not a good fit and want to return to my normal 1P workflow.
5. I search the app menu, settings, help, and documentation for a supported "switch back" option.
6. I do not find a visible rollback path.
7. The app continues showing Cowork 3P|Gateway in the bottom-left corner.
8. I eventually discover that I need to manually delete local state directories such as Claude-3p and Claude Nest-3p.

With this feature, users could safely try 3P/Gateway providers and return to 1P from the app without filesystem-level recovery steps.

Additional Context

Possibly related issues:

• #52572 - Support 3P inference providers in Claude Code (CLI parity)
• #46447 - Chrome extension backend toggle
• #55946 - 3P mode rootfs.vhdx commit failures

Existing 3P mode documentation:

• https://claude.com/docs/cowork/3p/overview
• https://support.claude.com/en/articles/14680741

Community setup guides for Gateway workflows can also leave users needing a clean rollback path. This request is not specific to Ollama or any single third-party provider; it is about making Claude Desktop's inference mode state visible and reversible from the product.