Comment by 1una
15 hours ago
Looks like this was restored 2 weeks ago[0], 3 days after Anthropic said OpenClaw requires extra usage[1]. At this point, it's hard to take this seriously. No official statement and not even a tweet?
15 hours ago
Looks like this was restored 2 weeks ago[0], 3 days after Anthropic said OpenClaw requires extra usage[1]. At this point, it's hard to take this seriously. No official statement and not even a tweet?
No, it's just that it's confusing, because there are two ways of using Claude Code credentials:
1. Take the oauth credentials and roll your own agent -- this is NOT allowed
2. Run your agentic application directly in Claude Code -- this IS allowed
When OpenClaw says "Open-Claw style CLI usage", it means literally running OpenClaw in an official Claude Code session. Anthropic has no problems with this, this is compliant with their ToS.
When you use Claude Code's oauth credentials outside of the claude code cli Anthropic will charge you extra usage (API pricing) within your existing subscription.
But... Even when running it in mode 2 ("claude -p") they at certain points tried to detect OpenClaw-usage based prompts made, and blocked them [0]. Now OpenClaw says that Antrophic sanctions this as allowable again.
I agree with GP that this is hard to take seriously.
[0]: https://x.com/steipete/status/2040811558427648357
> Even when running it in mode 2 ("claude -p") they at certain points tried to detect OpenClaw-usage based prompts made, and blocked them [0].
But then the Claude Code product manager said:
> This is not intentional, likely an overactive abuse classifier. Looking, and working on clarifying the policy going forward.
https://xcancel.com/bcherny/status/2041035127430754686#m
I mean, if you are them and trying to detect when people are using your system incorrectly the detection system is going to be a little bit flaky. How do they prove you aren't violating your ToS by using OAuth for a system they didn't approve that usage for?
The fault here is not with Anthropic. It lies with cowboy coders creating a system that violates a providers terms of service and creating an adverse relationship.
I have never heard of this, and cannot be reproduced, and is not according to Anthropic's ToS. And there's a lot of FUD being spread around.
They don't ban Openclaw prompts, each custom LLM application provides a client application id (this is how e.g. Openrouter can tell you how popular Openclaw is, and which models are used the most).
Anthropic just checks for that.
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And yet running the Claude Code cli with `-p` in ephemeral VMs gets me the "Third-party apps now draw from extra usage, not plan limits. We've added a credit to your organization to get you started. Ask your workspace admin to claim it and keep going." error.
One day you're experimenting just fine. The next, everything breaks.
And I'd gladly use their web containerized agents instead (it would pretty much be the same thing), but we happen to do Apple stuff. So unless we want to dive into relying on ever-changing unreliable toolchains that break every time Apple farts, we're stuck with macOS.
I think this is consistent with the Anthropic announcement. I do not see anything on this page that says it will NOT be charged as extra usage.
The most recent Anthropic announcement was not that people would be banned for using subscriptions with OpenClaw, but that it would be charged as extra usage. I think the reason this was changed three days after that announcement is that being charged for extra usage meant people would not be banned for using their subscription OAuth tokens directly against the Anthropic API with a third party harness, as they had been before. But rather both that usage, and the more recent claude -p usage both be charged as extra usage.
> No official statement and not even a tweet?
Release notes and announcements are a well-known agentic anti-pattern.
If you're doing them, you're doing agentic wrong. /s-ish-also-cry
This is called FUD, amplify negativity, silence positivity
Considering Anthropic is constantly doing the opposite, I would just call it "balance".
Not that I'm some paragon when it comes to critical thinking exactly, but if there any sort of proof or evidence of Anthropic "silencing negativity"? Wouldn't surprise me, but also haven't seen anything conclusive about it either, so spreading that they are as fact, is ironically FUD itself.
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It's also something super simple to clarify from Anthropic if they want.
They have, many times. We're seeing a chain where people are pointing to openclaw's github for information (a tool that was effectively acquired by their #1 competitor) and trying to make it sound so crazy. The actual flow was simple- They said "don't use your claude code membership on tools that burn lots of the subsidized tokens". Then a bunch of people raised a fit (because openclaw is almost useless without claude models), so Anthropic basically said "That's what the API keys are for".
Antropic has the info on their website, emailed all users for each step, and I've seen it on X- I'm sure it's in other places as well.
^every comment when someone says something remotely negative about LLM’s and their less useful cousins, cryptocurrencies. It’s baffling how similar the language and attitude is sometimes.
Anthropic was, even to me, “one of the better ones” until recently. They have made many questionable/poor decisions the last 6-8 weeks and people are right to call them out for it, especially when they want our money.
There are bad products and ones that are never used, just to paraphrase. Every single decision of any business gets derided by some segments of its users. You are free to call out Anthropic for anything you are unhappy about, and you are free to switch vendor, but calling them “good” or “bad” just shows your emotional immaturity, or bias.
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What's funny is I had personally settled on Anthropic as... the best of a bad situation, I guess? I found the tech useful even if I still deeply hate the industry and hype machine around it. Now though I can't get through a full discussion with Claude before the usage restrictions kick in, which has done a far better job getting me to kick the habit than anything else.
I still VERY occasionally use it (as I'm friggin able to anyway) but it's definitely nowhere near my usage previously. And I refuse to give them money, and besideswhich have no goddamn notion of whether it would even be worth it on the lowest paid tier.
Ah well. The free ride was fun but I knew it had a shelf life.
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