alt Hacker NewsI'm a little confused on the ToS here. From what I gathered, running `claude -p <prompt>` on cron is fine, but putting it in my Telegram bot is a ToS violation (unless I use per-token billing) because it's a 3rd party harness, right? (`claude -p` being a trivial workaround for the "no 3rd party stuff on the subscription" rule)
This Routines feature notably works with the subscription, and it also has API callbacks. So if my Telegram bot calls that API... do I get my Anthropic account nuked or not?
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The ambiguity is intentional. Like Microsoft not banning volume licenses. They want to scare you, so you don't max out your subscription – which they sell at a loss.
Another comparison would be "unlimited storage", where "unlimited" means some people will abuse it and the company will soon limit the "unlimited."
Yeah in the span of a month or so we had:
- SDK that allows you to use OAuth authentication!
- Docs updated to say DO NOT USE OAUTH authentication unless authorized! [0]
- Anthropic employee Tweeting "That's not what we meant! It's fine for personal use!" [1]
- An email sent out to everyone saying it's NOT fine do NOT use it [2]
Sigh.
[0] https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agent-sdk/overview#get-start...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1r8et0d/update_fr...
Wait we can't use claude -p around other tools? What is the point of the JSON SDK then? Anthropic is confusing here, ugh.
edit: And specifically i'm making an IDE, and trying to get ClaudeCode into it. I frankly have no clue when Claude usage is simply part of an IDE and "okay" and when it becomes a third party harness..
Don't use claude -p in any kind of harness at all. I used it ONCE in a local custom made one, and got my account nuked. No help from them at all. Appealed, and the appeal was denied. I had been a Max subscriber since day 1 and Claude subscriber since day 1 in 2023. They don't care.
What if claude triggers claude? Is claude automated or non-human?
So if claude decides to trigger claude -p then claude violates the ToS on your behalf and you get your account nuked?
Anthropic deserves to have this as the top comment on every HN post. It's absurd that they don't clarify this better and so many people are running around online saying the exact opposite from what their, confusing, docs say.
The Chilling Effect of this is real and it gets more and more frustrating that they can't or won't clarify.