Hacker News Reader

Comment by thepasch | Hacker News Reader

This is them sneaking in taking the Claude Agent SDK (claude -p) off of subscription plans through the back door along with a model release. They previously wanted to do this in June, but backpedaled after huge backlash:

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...

View on HN

Sorry that that help center article was misleading; we’ve updated it to clarify that `claude -p` has not been removed from subscriptions as part of this change!

That's super encouraging to hear, thank you for the clarification! I'd edit my original comment, but the edit window has unfortunately run out on it. Should be OK, though, since the help desk page is now explicit about it.

They changed this from earlier today... It's still very confusing.

one day they might realize the importance of reading llm output... maybe?

No one else does so why would they

lots of people are staying human-in-the-loop

Anthropic is among the worst, their linux kernel hack is a prime example, didn't even count the "CVEs" to see Mythos can't count either

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnV_cWeoo5Q

OpenAI just as bad with hugging face/wikipedia

I find OAI much worse on the negligence side, especially with the Tumbler Ridge school shooting

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mother-jones...

ANT annoys me more with their ai psychosis on steroids

That’s fair

Was it ever? I thought that whole thing was paused. Still unclear if personal use of agent sdk inside a harness is allowed.

I've been using `claude -p` for personal use for a long time without issues. I do mean actual irregular, personal use though. Not using it to max out my quota, using it as main rather than sub or trying to be cheeky with it.

Are you able to speak about the degree to which non-Claude harness use is discouraged? Has Anthropic's disdain towards non-Claude Code harnesses settled down since the compute crunch + OpenClaw heydey?

More importantly, will my personal company account get banned for using a non-Claude Code harness?

Not sure if you're able to answer these questions, but I would appreciate it if you can.

I've been operating under the pretense that claude -p was removed ages ago in the OpenClaw era, it's back now? What a mess of contradictory information, hope yall can figure it out

They never actually made the change. Using -p with a subscription has worked all along.

At one point they definitely turned it off and gave us a one-time credit to claim for -p, after which Claude -p was billed as extra usage

Can I build an app against this? Do you commit to not changing it again tomorrow?

But it is? Especially from Pro subscriptions, which don’t get API credits

It uses subscription quota just like before

I hope people notice again that this is happening this time around.

Being forced through the non-OSS Claude Code with all of its quirks and issues is... such an exhausting use of force by Anthropic.

To the extent that you _can_ choose to disable telemetry and training on your traces in CC, it's not all that obvious what they gain by crippling your ability to use the subscription with other – better – tools.

It's also remarkable that it's coincident with OpenAI adding "Sign in with OpenAI", so that you can use your tokens with other tools.

The page does not say anything about changing the way Agent SDK bills. I just tested Agent SDK and nothing has changed (yet).

You might be right and they will change this in the future, but that's speculative

> Claude Max and Team plans now include monthly API credits, which cover the Claude Agent SDK, the Claude API, and Claude Managed Agents.

This text has replaced the entirety of the page called "Use the Claude Agent SDK with your Claude plan."

Yes. Previously the page was all about how they were going to start charging for Agent SDK use with a banner on the top saying that, actually, they weren't going to do that.

...yes, a banner which has also now disappeared and been replaced, with the explicit mention that API credits "cover the Claude Agent SDK"?

What more do you need?

Well, it doesn't currently work that way on the latest SDK. If there's a change coming, it hasn't happened yet.

The monthly credit allocation hasn't rolled out yet either, so as of right now, we're effectively at the status quo. I'd expect the billing change to land once you can actually collect your Claude Console account.

The previous note confirming subscription billing has now reappeared

How credits work with `claude -p` is a common question. we're updating the faq now to make sure it's more clear

Update: We just updated the docs to clarify how API credits can be used w/ claude -p: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...

Just to be clear - claude -p use will now consume credits rather than count against your normal claude code usage? This seems like a significant downgrade.

this comment[1] seems clear that it will stay with subscription. Assuming they're authoritative of course.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49999702

The update they added here[1] yesterday makes it appear that usage is covered by your subscription by granting you credits. That's the way I'm reconciling the above comment with their update on the site.

[1]: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...

Those mfers. I'm using this for work! I use my work teams plan with pi so I can do all kinds of custom workflows that I can't in Claude Code. Time to convince management I need OpenAI instead.

Time to convince management (and yourself) to build some skills. :)

Spent many years building skills, I'm just working on a different level now.

Yeah there's no way in hell you're going to convince management to pay 10x for the same work because "human skills".

Or just for the token usage. The rug pull is coming eventually

Even after the June changes there was some allowance to use agent SDK on the pro plan. This will move me to codex tomorrow if agent SDK is really blocked on pro

Nothing is being removed as part of this!

*For now. If a company were to degrade something, it shouldn't be so obvious that the "goodwill" was just a reallocation. Just a good strategy. For example, it allows them to claim that they're "just going from 150% to 125% usage allowance, which is still more than 100%".

These are api tokens, you can build a business with them using any harness.

Yes, but they're wildly lower in value than the corresponding subscription usage.

Do we know if claude -p is now drawing from this API usage?

That's what the Agent SDK is, according to this help page:

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/headless

So, as written, yes.

Not yet, as of version 2.1.293. But I suspect this is coming next.

How credits work with `claude -p` is a common question we're seeing. we're updating the faq now to make sure it's more clear. Will share updated docs soon

Update: We just updated the docs to clarify how API credits can be used w/ claude -p: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com