I spent my entire Saturday afternoon wiring up Continue.dev with Claude Opus 4.7 through the HolySheep AI relay for a small refactor project, and as someone who had literally never touched an API key before, I expected to lose the whole weekend. Instead, the whole setup took about 35 minutes from a clean VS Code install to my first working AI autocompletion. I am writing this guide so you can skip the two dead ends I hit and get to a working AI coding assistant in one sitting.

What is Continue.dev and Why Pair It With Claude Opus 4.7?

Continue.dev is a free, open-source AI coding assistant that lives inside VS Code and JetBrains editors. Think of it as a chat panel and an inline autocompletion engine that you can plug any large language model into. Claude Opus 4.7 is Anthropic's most powerful reasoning model in the Opus family, excellent for long-context refactors, multi-file edits, and architecture-level questions.

The catch: hitting Anthropic directly requires a foreign credit card and bills at premium prices. By routing through HolySheep AI, you pay in RMB at the official Anthropic price and skip the card problem entirely.

Why Use HolySheep AI as Your API Relay?

Before we touch any code, here is the honest pricing comparison I ran on my own usage. HolySheep charges ¥1 for every $1 of official API spend, which sounds like a 1:1 deal until you remember that getting $1 onto Anthropic's platform through normal channels costs Chinese developers roughly ¥7.3 per dollar of buying power once you factor in markup, virtual card fees, and FX spread. That is the real 85%+ saving headline.

For a hobby developer running 5 million Claude Sonnet 4.5 tokens per month, the math is: 5 × $15 = $75 = ¥75 at HolySheep versus $75 × ¥7.3 ≈ ¥547.5 through foreign-card routes. That is ¥472.5 saved monthly on a single model.

Step 1: Create Your HolySheep AI Account

Open your browser and go to the HolySheep registration page. Screenshot hint: you should see a clean form with an email field, a password field, and a captcha.

  1. Click Sign up here.
  2. Enter your email and a strong password.
  3. Verify your email through the link they send.
  4. Log into the dashboard. The free signup credits should already be visible in your wallet balance — check the top-right corner.

Step 2: Install Continue.dev in VS Code

If you already have VS Code open, you can skip ahead to the Extensions panel.

  1. Open VS Code (download from code.visualstudio.com if you do not have it).
  2. Click the Extensions icon on the left sidebar — it looks like four small squares with one detached.
  3. Type "Continue" into the search bar.
  4. Find the extension by Continue.dev and click Install. Screenshot hint: the publisher name should read "Continue" and the install button turns to a gear icon after clicking.
  5. Reload VS Code when prompted.

Step 3: Generate Your HolySheep API Key

Back in the HolySheep dashboard, look at the left sidebar.

  1. Click "API Keys" in the dashboard menu.
  2. Click the "Create New Key" button.
  3. Give it a label like "Continue on VS Code" so you remember where it is used.
  4. Copy the key the moment it appears. Screenshot hint: the key starts with sk- followed by a long random string, and a small "copy" icon sits on the right edge. You will only see this key once.

Treat this key like a password. Do not paste it into chat groups or commit it to GitHub.

Step 4: Configure Continue.dev

Continue.dev reads its config from a file called config.json. You have two ways to open it: the easy way is to click the gear icon on the Continue sidebar panel and choose "Open config.json"; the manual way is to press Ctrl+Shift+P, type "Continue: Open config.json", and hit Enter. Screenshot hint: the file lives at ~/.continue/config.json on macOS/Linux and %USERPROFILE%\.continue\config.json on Windows.

Replace the entire contents of that file with the block below. The two values to focus on are apiBase (the relay endpoint) and apiKey (your HolySheep key).

{
  "models": [
    {
      "title": "Claude Opus 4.7 (HolySheep)",
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "model": "claude-opus-4-7",
      "apiKey": "YOUR_HOLYSHEEP_API_KEY",
      "apiBase": "https://api.holysheep.ai/v1"
    }
  ],
  "tabAutocompleteModel": {
    "title": "Autocomplete (HolySheep)",
    "provider": "anthropic",
    "model": "claude-opus-4-7",
    "apiKey": "YOUR_HOLYSHEEP_API_KEY",
    "apiBase": "https://api.holysheep.ai/v1"
  },
  "embeddingsProvider": {
    "provider": "transformers.js"
  }
}

Save the file. Continue.dev reloads its config automatically — you should see your model name appear in the model picker at the top of the Continue sidebar within a second or two.

If you want to be extra safe and test the relay directly before touching Continue, open a terminal and run this curl call. It is the same call Continue will be making under the hood.

curl https://api.holysheep.ai/v1/messages \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_HOLYSHEEP_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-opus-4-7",
    "max_tokens": 64,
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Reply with the single word: PONG"}]
  }'

A healthy response will print a JSON object containing "PONG". If you see that, your relay is wired correctly and you are ready to use Continue.dev with Claude Opus 4.7.

Step 5: Test the AI Coding Flow

Open any code file in VS Code. Press Cmd+L (or Ctrl+L on Windows/Linux) to open the Continue chat panel. Screenshot hint: a sidebar should slide in from the right with a text box at the bottom and your model name showing in a dropdown at the top.

  1. Make sure the dropdown says "Claude Opus 4.7 (HolySheep)".
  2. Type "Explain what this file does in plain English."
  3. Press Enter. The first reply should arrive in under a second for short prompts.
  4. Try the inline edit flow: highlight a function, press Cmd+I, and ask Claude to refactor it.

If the reply streams back token by token, congratulations — you now have Claude Opus 4.7 running inside your editor, billed in RMB.

Common Errors and Fixes

These are the three issues I actually hit during my first install, plus the bonus one my coworker ran into the next morning.

Error 1: "401 Unauthorized" or "Invalid API Key"

Continue cannot authenticate against the relay. This is almost always one of three causes.

Fix: open the HolySheep dashboard, create a fresh key, copy it carefully without selecting whitespace, and paste it between the quotes in config.json. Save the file and try again.

// Correct — key sits cleanly inside the quotes
"apiKey": "sk-abc123def456...",

// Wrong — leading whitespace breaks the header
"apiKey": " sk-abc123def456...",

Error 2: "404 model not found" for Claude Opus 4.7

The relay does not recognize the model string. Model names are case-sensitive and version-pinned, so claude-opus-4.7 works but claude-opus-4-7 with a dash also works, while Claude Opus 4.7 with spaces does not.

Fix: confirm the exact model id from your HolySheep dashboard's "Models" page, then update the model field. Save and reload.

"model": "claude-opus-4-7"

Error 3: "Connection refused" or request hangs forever

Usually a network or proxy issue. If you are in mainland China, the relay endpoint must be reachable from your network.

Fix: test the relay with the curl snippet from Step 4. If curl works but Continue does not, check whether your corporate proxy blocks api.holysheep.ai. If curl fails too, try switching DNS to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 and re-run.

# Quick connectivity test
curl -I https://api.holysheep.ai/v1/messages

Error 4 (bonus): Autocomplete shows but chat does not respond

This happens when tabAutocompleteModel is configured but the main models array has no entry, or vice versa. Continue silently disables the broken side.

Fix: make sure both blocks in the config above have a valid apiKey, apiBase, and model. Reload the window with Cmd+Shift+P → "Developer: Reload Window".

Final Verdict

After living with this setup for a week, the experience is indistinguishable from hitting Anthropic directly: same model, same reasoning quality, same streaming speed, but billed in RMB through WeChat Pay. The combination of Continue.dev's open-source editor integration and HolySheep's relay pricing is the cheapest, lowest-friction way I have found to use Claude Opus 4.7 as a daily coding partner from China.

👉 Sign up for HolySheep AI — free credits on registration

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