I was all set to be pissed off, "you can't tell me what I can make with your product once you've sold it to me!" but no... This outrage bait hinges on the definition of "use"
You can use Claude Code to write code to make a competitor for Claude Code. What you cannot do is reverse engineer the way the Claude Code harness uses the API to build your own version that taps into stuff like the max plan. Which? makes sense?
From the thread:
> A good rule of thumb is, are you launching a Claude code oauth screen and capturing the token. That is against terms of service.
> This is why the supported way to use Claude in your own tools is via the API. We genuinely want people building on Claude, including other coding agents and harnesses, and we know developers have broad preferences for different tool ergonomics.
If you're a maintainer of a third-party tool and want to chat about integration paths, my DMs are open.
And the linked tweet says that such integration is against their terms.
The highlighted term says that you can't use their services to develop a competing product/service. I don't read that as the same as integrating their API into a competing product/service. It does seem to suggest you can't develop a competitor to Claude Code using Claude Code, as the title says, which is a bit silly, but doesn't contradict the linked tweet.
I suspect they have this rule to stop people using Claude to train other models, or competitors testing outputs etc, but it is silly in the context of Claude Code.
I wonder how will this affect future Anthropic products, if prior art/products exist that have already been built using
claude.
If this is to only limit knowledge distillation for training new models or people
Copying claude code specifically or preventing max plan creds used as API replacement, they could properly carve exceptions rather than being too broad which risks turning away new customers for fear of (future) conflict
If they think that will work, they're really silly. Is a ToS change going to stop a corp which can gain millions of dollars and can technically work around the protection in hours? Yeah, nah..
Yup, I’ve been crowing about these customer noncompetes for years now and it’s clear Anthropic has one of the worst ones. The real kicker is, since Claude Code can do anything, you’re technically not allowed to use it for anything, and everyone just depends on Anthropic not being evil
Sounds like standard terms from lawyers – not very friendly to customers, very friendly to company – but is it particularly bad here?
I remember when I was part of procuring an analytics tool for a previous employer and they had a similar clause that would essentially have banned us from building any in-house analytics while we were bound by that contract.
I think there are issues with Anthropic (and their ToS); however, banning the "harnesses" is justified. If you're relying on scraping a web UI or reverse-engineering private APIs to bypass per-token costs, it's just VC subsidy arbitrage. The consumer plan has a different purpose.
The ToS is concerning, I have concerns with Anthropic in general, but this policy enforcement is not problematic to me.
(yes, I know, Anthropic's entire business is technically built on scraping. but ideally, the open web only)
This message from the Zed discord (from a zed staffer) puts it clearly, I think:
“….you can use Claude code in Zed but you can’t hijack the rate limits to do other ai stuff in zed.”
This was a response to my asking whether we can use the Claude Max subscription for the awesome inline assistant (Ctl+Enter in the editor buffer) without having to pay for yet another metered API.
The answer is no, the above was a response to a follow up.
An aside - everyone is abuzz about “Chat to Code” which is a great interface when you are leaning toward never or only occasionally looking at the generated code. But for writing prose? It’s safe to say most people definitely want to be looking at what’s written, and in this case “chat” is not the best interaction. Something like the inline assistant where you are immersed in the writing is far better.
This whole situation is getting out of hand. With the development speed AI has it is a matter of time to have a competitor that has 80% what CC does and it is going to be good enough for most of us. Trying Windows the way into this category by Anthropic is not the smartest move.
Can anyone read? The text doesn't mention Claude Code or anything like it at all.
I swear to god everyone is spoiling for a fight because they're bored. All these AI companies have this language to try to prevent people from "distilling" their model into other models. They probably wrote this before even making Claude Code.
Worst case scenario they cancel your account if they really want to, but almost certainly they'll just tweak the language once people point it out.
I still did not get very clearly what can and can’t zed, open code and other do to use max plan? Developers want to use these 3p client and pay you 200 a month, why are you pissing us off. I understand some abuser exists but you will never really be possible to ban them 100%, technically.
Very poor communication, despite some bit of reasonable intention, could be the beginning of the end for Claude Code.
Anthropic showed their true colors with their sloppy switch to using Claude Code for training data. They can absolutely do what they want but they have completely destroyed any reason for me to consider them fundamentally better than their competitors.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 63.2 ms ] threadIs this them saying that their human developers don’t add much to their product beyond what the AI does for them?
You can use Claude Code to write code to make a competitor for Claude Code. What you cannot do is reverse engineer the way the Claude Code harness uses the API to build your own version that taps into stuff like the max plan. Which? makes sense?
From the thread:
> A good rule of thumb is, are you launching a Claude code oauth screen and capturing the token. That is against terms of service.
This tweet reads as nonsense to me
It's quoting:
> This is why the supported way to use Claude in your own tools is via the API. We genuinely want people building on Claude, including other coding agents and harnesses, and we know developers have broad preferences for different tool ergonomics. If you're a maintainer of a third-party tool and want to chat about integration paths, my DMs are open.
And the linked tweet says that such integration is against their terms.
The highlighted term says that you can't use their services to develop a competing product/service. I don't read that as the same as integrating their API into a competing product/service. It does seem to suggest you can't develop a competitor to Claude Code using Claude Code, as the title says, which is a bit silly, but doesn't contradict the linked tweet.
I suspect they have this rule to stop people using Claude to train other models, or competitors testing outputs etc, but it is silly in the context of Claude Code.
If this is to only limit knowledge distillation for training new models or people Copying claude code specifically or preventing max plan creds used as API replacement, they could properly carve exceptions rather than being too broad which risks turning away new customers for fear of (future) conflict
How would they even detect that you used CC on a competitor? There's surely no ethical reason to not do it, it seems unenforceable.
I remember when I was part of procuring an analytics tool for a previous employer and they had a similar clause that would essentially have banned us from building any in-house analytics while we were bound by that contract.
We didn't sign.
The ToS is concerning, I have concerns with Anthropic in general, but this policy enforcement is not problematic to me.
(yes, I know, Anthropic's entire business is technically built on scraping. but ideally, the open web only)
“….you can use Claude code in Zed but you can’t hijack the rate limits to do other ai stuff in zed.”
This was a response to my asking whether we can use the Claude Max subscription for the awesome inline assistant (Ctl+Enter in the editor buffer) without having to pay for yet another metered API.
The answer is no, the above was a response to a follow up.
An aside - everyone is abuzz about “Chat to Code” which is a great interface when you are leaning toward never or only occasionally looking at the generated code. But for writing prose? It’s safe to say most people definitely want to be looking at what’s written, and in this case “chat” is not the best interaction. Something like the inline assistant where you are immersed in the writing is far better.
Anthropic blocks third-party use of Claude Code subscriptions
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46549823
I swear to god everyone is spoiling for a fight because they're bored. All these AI companies have this language to try to prevent people from "distilling" their model into other models. They probably wrote this before even making Claude Code.
Worst case scenario they cancel your account if they really want to, but almost certainly they'll just tweak the language once people point it out.
Very poor communication, despite some bit of reasonable intention, could be the beginning of the end for Claude Code.