diff --git a/src/__tests__/recorder.test.ts b/src/__tests__/recorder.test.ts
index f2ac2c09..7020ceb9 100644
--- a/src/__tests__/recorder.test.ts
+++ b/src/__tests__/recorder.test.ts
@@ -1673,9 +1673,9 @@ describe("recorder auth header handling", () => {
     expect(content).not.toContain("api-key");
   });
 
-  it("custom non-auth headers from client are NOT forwarded to upstream", async () => {
-    // We'll verify by checking that the upstream doesn't receive custom headers.
-    // Create a raw upstream that echoes back received headers.
+  it("all non-hop-by-hop headers from client are forwarded to upstream", async () => {
+    // Verify that provider-specific headers (e.g. anthropic-version) are forwarded,
+    // while hop-by-hop headers (host, connection, etc.) are stripped.
     let receivedHeaders: http.IncomingHttpHeaders = {};
     const echoServer = http.createServer((req, res) => {
       receivedHeaders = req.headers;
@@ -1705,15 +1705,15 @@ describe("recorder auth header handling", () => {
       },
       {
         Authorization: "Bearer sk-test",
-        "X-Custom-Header": "should-not-forward",
-        "X-Request-Id": "req-123",
+        "X-Custom-Header": "custom-value",
+        "anthropic-version": "2023-06-01",
       },
     );
 
-    // Authorization is forwarded, custom headers are not
+    // All non-hop-by-hop headers are forwarded
     expect(receivedHeaders["authorization"]).toBe("Bearer sk-test");
-    expect(receivedHeaders["x-custom-header"]).toBeUndefined();
-    expect(receivedHeaders["x-request-id"]).toBeUndefined();
+    expect(receivedHeaders["x-custom-header"]).toBe("custom-value");
+    expect(receivedHeaders["anthropic-version"]).toBe("2023-06-01");
 
     await new Promise<void>((resolve) => echoServer.close(() => resolve()));
   });
diff --git a/src/recorder.ts b/src/recorder.ts
index ef34c001..ea8db18b 100644
--- a/src/recorder.ts
+++ b/src/recorder.ts
@@ -16,6 +16,25 @@ import type { Logger } from "./logger.js";
 import { collapseStreamingResponse } from "./stream-collapse.js";
 import { writeErrorResponse } from "./sse-writer.js";
 
+/** Headers to strip when proxying — hop-by-hop (RFC 2616 §13.5.1) + client-set. */
+const STRIP_HEADERS = new Set([
+  // Hop-by-hop (RFC 2616 §13.5.1)
+  "connection",
+  "keep-alive",
+  "transfer-encoding",
+  "te",
+  "trailer",
+  "upgrade",
+  "proxy-authorization",
+  "proxy-authenticate",
+  // Set by HTTP client from the target URL / body
+  "host",
+  "content-length",
+  // Not relevant for LLM APIs; avoid leaking or mismatched encoding
+  "cookie",
+  "accept-encoding",
+]);
+
 /**
  * Proxy an unmatched request to the real upstream provider, record the
  * response as a fixture on disk and in memory, then relay the response
@@ -63,12 +82,10 @@ export async function proxyAndRecord(
 
   defaults.logger.warn(`NO FIXTURE MATCH — proxying to ${upstreamUrl}${pathname}`);
 
-  // Forward only safe headers — auth and content negotiation
+  // Forward all request headers except hop-by-hop and client-set ones.
   const forwardHeaders: Record<string, string> = {};
-  const headersToForward = ["authorization", "x-api-key", "api-key", "content-type", "accept"];
-  for (const name of headersToForward) {
-    const val = req.headers[name];
-    if (val !== undefined) {
+  for (const [name, val] of Object.entries(req.headers)) {
+    if (val !== undefined && !STRIP_HEADERS.has(name)) {
       forwardHeaders[name] = Array.isArray(val) ? val.join(", ") : val;
     }
   }