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Comment by adastra22

16 hours ago

> Claude Code has been inherently limited to conversations

How so? I’ve been using “claude -p” for a while now.

But even within an interactive session, an agent call out is non-interactive. It operates entirely autonomously, and then reports back the end result to the top level agent.

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adastra22

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skippyboxedhero  15 hours ago

Because of OAuth. If they gave people API keys then no-one buys their ludicrously priced API product (I assume their strategy is to subsidise their consumer product with the business product).

You can use Claude Code SDK but it requires a token from Claude Code. If you use this token anywhere else, your account gets shut down.

Claude -p still hits Claude Code with all the tools, all the Claude Code wrapping.

  • adastra22  12 hours ago

    That’s not what this subthread is about. They’re talking about the subagent within Claude Code itself.

    Btw, you can use the Claude Agent SDK (the renamed Claude Code SDK) with a subscription. I can tell you it works out of the box, and AFAIK it is not a ToS violation.

    • mmcclure  8 hours ago

      Oh really? I was looking at the Agent SDK for an idea and the docs seemed to imply that wasn't the case.

          Unless previously approved, we do not allow third party developers to offer Claude.ai login or rate limits for their products, including agents built on the Claude Agent SDK. Please use the API key authentication methods described in this document instead.

      I didn't dig deeper, but I'd pick it back up for a little personal project if I could just use my current subscription. Does it just use your local CC session out of the box?

  • TeMPOraL  13 hours ago

    > If they gave people API keys then no-one buys their ludicrously priced API product

    The main driver for those subscriptions is that their monthly cost with Opus 3.7 and up pays itself back in couple hours of basic CC use, relative to API prices.