Tell HN: Anthropic no longer allowing Claude Code subscriptions to use OpenClaw

Does this mean I can't use `claude -p` in bash scripts now?

Less than 24hr notice on a Friday: either Anthropic is dropping S tier next week or they massively fumbled over the past 2 months in self owns and outages.

So is Codex the only SOTA that welcomes third-party harness?

For anyone interested, I’m cleaning up a project I’ve been working on that is a router for arbitrary agents derivative of/forked from ZeroClaw… part of what it does is let you switch between different agents on WhatsApp/Signal/Matrix etc via !switch commands, so that part isn’t an agent itself but just wants to own your channels so you can have any number of agents talking to the same handful of channels without contention.

I do also bundle a default agent with it, also forked from ZeroClaw, with a goal of being more or less prompt injection proof and hopefully able to centralize some configuration and permissions for most or all of the agents it manages, though that part is very rough sketch/plan at the moment I’d love feedback and help on from anyone interested…. Two projects, clash and nono caught my eye in this space, I think both leverage Linux landgrant but I may also use landrun for similar control of other processes like openclaw that it may manage for the user, still figuring out how and where to fit all the pieces together and what’s pragmatic/what’s overkill/what overlaps or duplicates across various strategies and tools. Right now there’s real bash wrappers that evaluate starlark policies, hoping to fully validate better end to end but if you’re interested a few others users testing, validating and/or contributing Claude tokens to the project could be invaluable at this stage. Plan to open source ASAP, maybe tonight or tomorrow if there’s interest and I have time to finish cleanup and rename (I was calling it PolyClaw but that confuses with some weird polymarket Claude skill, so now the router is going to be ZeroClawed and the agent will stay NonZeroClaw in homage to ZeroClaw who it’s forked from… we may also integrate the new Claw Code port which is also rust, just for good measure/as a native coding agent in addition to the native claw agent )

Anyway the main reason I mention is it already has a working ACP integration for any code agent, and working now on using Claude codes native channel integration to make it appear as a full fledged channel of its own, as it now more or less does already to OpenClaw, for anyone wanting to gradually migrate away from their existing OpenClaw installation using this, towards Claude or some other agent. Email me or respond here if interested, or I’ll try and post link here once it’s fully public/open source

Haha, I almost expected this.

Say goodbye to my 600$/ month Anthropic.

OpenClaw also had the ability to run entirely within Claude Code instead of using the oauth token. Would that still be allowed?

I received it too. I wonder if they sent this to all pro/max subscribers or only those who they’ve flagged as having used a third party harness.

Oh, it's a billing thing. Not fear that Claude coupled to something that can actually do things is dangerous.

Why doesn't OpenAI introduce $100/mo plan? Surely many would switch in a heartbeat

I wonder if this also applies to tools that interact with the claude code tui through tmux's capabilities.

You can basically do what open claw does with native Claude code features now anyway.

That’s how ecosystems start: by cutting out third parties.

What are people doing with OpenClaw? Are there any places that try to log best uses and new ideas?

Since the OpenClaw creator is posting on HN I’d like to hear some commentary from him directly.

Running locally or privately (in the cloud) is the future. Anthropic/OAI will need to recoup (astronomical) training costs and I'm not going to be their bailout plan, especially considering training was done on torrented & copyrighted data anyway.

Public model inference quality is almost at SOTA levels, why would anyone pay these VC-subsidized companies even a cent? For a shitty chat interface? Give me a break.

What should we use next for coding in openclaw

Does anyone know. How would that relate to simply wrapping claude code as a subprocess?

Anthropic are a smart clever research based bunch of people, they probably realised that openclaw is a mess, full of vibe coding get rich quick people, nothing particularly interesting to observe, and don't want to mix this data with the data they have already from real coders.

I feel like they need to be more blatant and up front about this rule because we hear everyone freaking out about either this or the API limits during core hours. Meanwhile because I know to use it out of peak hours, I havent had any downed hours outside of that first month when they didnt rate limit Claude Code to JUST peak usage hours.

Personally idk why they dont just make Claude Code more open source friendly. Let the community do PRs for Claude Code. Let us change the tooling, if I could use their own client but swap out the tools it calls and how, I would use like 90% less tokens.

I haven't gotten this notification yet

Disappointing. I built a lovely little Nanoclaw bot that's been surprisingly helpful at raising a puppy. I haven't gotten this email, so I wonder if my usage is too low to catch their first pass. If they shut it down though, the fix is straightforward -- some API based backend with zero stickiness to Anthropic.

It is a pity though. For less than an hour of setup the Nanoclaw bot proved enormously useful at tracking meal times, training progress, etc and the interface was easy enough for the family to get involved. The ease of setup was really remarkable, and Anthropic creating artificial barriers just seems user hostile.

I still haven't got this email, anyone else?

Makes sense, yes. That’s definitely not sustainable

Just in time for my subscription to expire. Goodbye!

I thought this had already been the case for a while?

Using Xiaomi’s mimo pro on openrouter via hermes agent

Maybe after net neutrality we should have AI neutrality too. So you can use it how you see fit without stupid restrictions.

Does anyone have a link to the "read more"?

Looks like I'm going to be switching to OpenAI. I know the whole "well those are the terms" Stockholm syndrome argument, but no, those weren't the terms when I signed up. If one of the parties decided to unilaterally change terms in any other everyday situation, nobody would think it was acceptable, but we've become so resigned to corporations having enough money to make the law suit them that we think it's moral behavior.

No, Anthropic, just because you added a clause that says "we can change these terms whenever" doesn't make it right. I'm paying you a set amount of money a month for a set amount of tokens (that's what limits are), and I should be able to use these tokens however I want.

Luckily, there are alternatives.

Could the real reason for this be more centered around generation and control of new training data?

I suspect the same for the forced high AI usage quotas for developers at MS etc. We've had multiple generations of models trained on all of the code that's available and there are diminishing returns on how much that data can do for training now. Newly published publicly available data is also made up of a significant portion of slop.

The best way to get fresh training data from real human brains might be to have real humans use your first party tools where you control all of the telemetry.

someone else _not_ having the “Claim” button on the banner at the top of the Usage page?

Doesn't this unfairly impact startups? Why not instead allow issuance of API keys with usage caps? It seems like a money grab.

Hmmmmm now anthropic what do

Honestly, this is a good thing. OpenClaw as a concept was rather silly to run such a heavy model for. If you want something like OpenClaw to work you really need to figure out how to do it with an economical model.

Goodbye customers.

Literally :rofl: here. About all the people panicking that they suddenly can’t work anymore. Come on, how did you work and develop three years ago without AI? If you can’t program or understand code without an LLM you should maybe switch careers and not call yourself engineers. In the meantime, I have never touched Claude, Copilot, or what not, and continue to write my low level code used in real engineering and manufacturing plants as well as science labs. And since most/all of this isn’t really working through/with AI (as some colleagues in the field have tried and miserably failed) I can increase my rates and have started to charge a good amount more from clients. As they can’t find people anymore that are willing to understand the problems and deliver working code. The people are busy trying to get AI work in the my field instead of doing the real work that is asked. Literally :rofl: on how AI makes me more money without having to use and touch it. If this continues as it does, I might be able to retire soon (40s) and go back to study physics as I did and maybe engage in some theoretical physics PHD (self financed).

cant wait till they implement turboquant and make ai cheaper again

I like how the best way to protest this is by doing what everyone should have been doing to begin with: running a great open source model on rented hardware

Is anyone even getting anything out of a $20/mo sub for Anthropic?

I'm doing a side-by-side with GPT-5.4 for $20/mo and Sonnet for $20/mo and I can tell you that all my 5 hour tokens are eaten in 30 minutes with Claude. I still haven't used my tokens for OpenAI.

Code quality seems fine on both. Building an app in Go

You can cancel your subscription, there are like 5 competitors you can pick instead and anthropic offers an API plan where you can find out how many tokens circus tools like claws really consume compared to coding tasks.

Anthropic should calm down, I get that they're trying to either build a moat, or simply curb what is essentially subsidized tokens. It is technically true that when you've got a claude code subscription you pay for the product with its terms, and those terms doesn't include you grabbing the token and using it for another application. They're also trying to build a competitor to openclaw so it makes sense they're trying to crush it. But it feels like such a feeble moat, that it looks silly. Claude Code is nice, but it is not that nice.

> To make the transition easier, we’re offering a one-time credit for extra usage equal to your monthly subscription price. Redeem your credit by April 17. We’re also introducing discounts when you pre-purchase bundles of extra usage (up to 30%).

The Anthropic casino wants you to continue gambling tokens at their casino only on their machines (Claude Code) only by giving more promotional offers such as free spins, $20 bets and more free tokens at the roulette wheels and slot machines.

But you cannot repurpose your subscription on other slot machines that are not owned by Anthropic and if you want it badly, they charge you more for those credits.

The house (Anthropic) always wins.

I already moved it to chatgpt for a while

i think i'll no longer be giving my money to anthropic

So now what happens to startups and ADE's orientated around Claude like Conductor.. no more Claude for them I guess back to Codex!

Goodbye!

I now use Claude's own telegram plugin with channels mode, no reason to use openclaw anymore.