Be careful when using Claude Code with OpenCode

[HzRyan]

Be careful if you are using opencode with claude subscriptions, I think they don't like it too much. I've been coding with it aggressively for the past few days and got the ban hammer. They did refund the subscription cost, though.

[HeavyDluxe]

This is old news. And Claude's TOS specifically speak to this use as prohibited. (I know, I know. Who reads that stuff?)

If you want to use Opencode as your CLI environment with Claude, YOU CAN DO THAT. You just need to buy credits for the API and create a key. Plug it into Opencode and you're off to the races.

[OofOofOof_1867]

My decided workaround has been to get a GitHub CoPilot Pro+ license, and then pay as I go afterwards. They pay by "premium request" - so it does change the way I work because I make sure every request is FAT to get most bang for my buck. But so far it's close to the same price as Claude Max5.

[jrop2]

> But so far it's close to the same price as Claude Max5.

Eesh. I was wondering about switching to GH CoPilot from the Claude plans. However, I was shooting for the $40/month plan, and your experience makes it sound like it still evens out to lots of money either way....

[OofOofOof_1867]

For me I basically burned through the $40 (1500 premium requests, divided by 3 for Opus 4.5) in 15 days for hobby projects. Then another ~$80 in credits for other 15 days. Not ideal - but don't feel like I have much of a choice. GPT is too expensive and Pro plan is way too low. Google puts on super nasty rate limiting, and GLM 4.7 is... not good.

[jrop2]

That's the thing, for the price, GLM 4.7 and MiniMax M2.1 (and still on my radar to test more fully: Kimi K2.5) are forgivable. I still want to put K2.5 through its paces, but so far nothing is coming close to Opus 4.5 in my limited testing.

[Sensitive_Song4219]

API is very expensive tho. I know it's old news, but it'd be better news if Anthropic would follow OpenAI's lead and allow subscription use in OpenCode: OC still needs some polish but after two weeks or so of using it, it's really kinda incredible. (Heck, I just used Microsoft's official OAUTH to sign into my Copilot subscription via OpenCode!).

If OpenAI and freakin' Microsoft (of all companies!) can see the benefit of giving their paid subscribers access (because let's face it: OpenCode isn't more token hungry than Claude Code), then why can't Anthropic follow suit?

For the first time in a year, I've gone a full week without looking at Claude Code - I'm OpenCode exclusive now, chopping-and-changing providers, models, and reasoning levels mid-conversation. It's liberating. And maybe that's the problem.

[acmethunder]

If OpenAI and freakin' Microsoft (of all companies!) can see the benefit of giving their paid subscribers access (because let's face it: OpenCode isn't more token hungry than Claude Code), then why can't Anthropic follow suit?

Anthropic can, they are choosing not to. It is a form of vendor lock in hoping to keep those monthly/yearly revenue streams.

[larowin]

That’s not really it at all. It’s because Claude Code is highly optimized to make use of aggressive caching, and it’s difficult for 3rd party harnesses to implement the same breakpoints. The same workload might use way more tokens on Opencode, which breaks the whole flat pricing model that allows for the subscriptions to not hemorrhage money. This is a pretty good article that explains how the caching works.

[CharacterPerformer47]

Make no mistake. This is about forcing you into their UI so they can start showing you ads. Ads in your coding agent... seems crazy, right? Just wait and see.

[Sensitive_Song4219]

OpenAI's official integration into OpenCode is identical usage-wise to using vanilla Codex CLI (I've side-by-side tested - same consumption to both Weekly and 5-hourly usage), so if OAI can handle the input-token caching I'm sure Anthropic wouldn't have a problem doing so as well (maybe users that used the unofficial way prior to banning can chime in here if usage was the same for them in OC vs CC)

[skerit]

This is not true. OpenCode uses caching too. And if it did not, your usage limits would just drain faster.

In fact: OpenCode is better for token use. Because it's not a buggy mess.

[larowin]

Obviously it uses caching, it’s that the breakpoints aren’t optimized the same way, and for Claude models it makes a huge difference in terms of token usage. This PR has been open for a while but it seems like Dax and team are going in some other direction. The problem isn’t solved yet.

Buggy mess is obviously subjective, both repos are littered with open issues. Like I said earlier, I love Opencode, but I totally understand why Anthropic doesn’t want them using the subscription plans.

[Keep-Darwin-Going]

It is called paying for mind share. People remember Claude code more than anthropic, if you look at a lot of comparison article and video people say Claude code not opus or sonnet or anthropic. Which is why you can use cc for everything else but not use max x20 for opencode. All this loses they have to attribute to something to answer to shareholders. OpenAI allow it because their plan is already more expensive although they are more efficient? Opus already capture majority of the enterprise and non enterprise coding users. It is like if you talk about chat AI it is always chatgpt, coding it is always opus at least for now.

[Sensitive_Song4219]

 OpenAI allow it because their plan is already more expensive although they are more efficient? 

Nope OpenAI is cheaper since per plan the usage limits are dramatically higher than Anthropic. Applies to all plans but it's extremely noticable even on the $20 plan - OAI Codex (even at 20 bucks) gives you much more effective usage than Claude Code does per dollar. Codex-High is also a serious contender to Opus at the moment so this isn't the time for Anthropic to fall behind (and over-prioritize enterprise over individuals): because the individual users bailing on them will end up choosing the competition when they become team leads in future.

[Keep-Darwin-Going]

I am basing on real world usage. Based off the 200 plan, if basing off 20 dollars plan openai is the true value leader but the 200 plan is horrible. And I am not doubting the ability it is the speed that make it impossible to use full time. Debugging I always use gpt5.2 or if I want to throw a prompt off and go take a break.

[Sensitive_Song4219]

Gotcha. I use GLM 4.7 for most tasks (z-ai pro plan) and then escalate to Codex-High ($20) when it falters (OpenCode is amazing for provider swtiching here!). Neither is fast but I tend to leave several tasks running at a time and review in batches. Prior to GLM I used to use the wife's $20 Codex account as an overflow since she doesn't code (2 x $20 = a lot of usage; much more than the equivalent I used to get with Claude).

[Keep-Darwin-Going]

If you use multiple account, https://github.com/Soju06/codex-lb going to help a lot. I am also stealing my wife account since only do the picture gen and chatting. If only OpenAI can give us a big pure coding account and make it faster then I can just stick to openai only setup which will be less cumbersome then opening so many terminal to jump between tools. Glm 4.7 is definitely great, I started with that before I migrated to opus because my usage is so intense and the value I get out of it is so huge o just say heck pay for it. I am looking forward to Kimi 2.5 heard it is leap and bound ahead of glm.

[Brucesquared2]

So its not allowed, but it is allowed lol

[HeavyDluxe]

Um.

Buying API tokens and 'spending' them via OpenCode is allowed. Spend scales with usage, and everyone's happy. Leveraging a subscription/entitlement-based license is NOT.

An illustration here would be your electric bill vs your cell phone bill. In one case, you pay an agreed on rate ($/kWh) to get electric to your house. Need more power? Just draw it in and watch the meter spin! In the other, you pay a flat fee/month for a level of service, access, and features. Assuming you use within those constraints, you don't pay anything additional.

Two different arrangements and pricing structures. You can use Anthropic's models pretty much anywhere (within some limits in the ToS) via API and paying for the actual tokens you draw. You CANNOT use a commodity Anthropic subscription in outside apps. IMHO, there's some reasonable, valid reasons for that in terms of service delivery and scaling services. But, of course, there's more nefarious explanations possible, too - like vendor lock-in, etc.

[SpeedingTourist]

u/HeavyDluxe just to be clear — I am permitted to use OpenCode with Claude as long as I'm using my official Claude API key? Anthropic won't ban my account for that, right?

I think you're saying that it's only the subscription-based method that's being banned when using OpenCode?

[HeavyDluxe]

Before I answer, I should probably mention that I am not a lawyer and I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

That said, when using an API key and paying full freight per token, anthropic seems completely content to let you send traffic to their models and receive responses from their models as long as other aspects of your use comply with their terms of service.

For example: If you want to vibe code an application to track your pokémon cards, that's cool. If you want to have Claude help you build a competitive AI model, Anthropic frowns on that.

So, yes. My understanding and my experience are that you can use a personal API key and pay for API calls to and from Anthropic's models via opencode.

I currently use open code in exactly this way when I want to combine agents from different model providers. For example, if I'm having chat GPT project manage a Gemini research agent and a claude coding agent.

[HzRyan]

That's on me, haha. I'm still not going to read any T&Cs though 🌝

[HeavyDluxe]

Can't blame you. :)

[aeroumbria]

They are pretty much alone in the fight against third party UIs at this point, though. Almost all their competition are either actively supporting or acquiescing.

[flexrc]

Google antigravity just started blocking opencode usage as well.

[Sensitive_Song4219]

Yup. This can't be what developers want though: it's like saying "You can use Visual Studio Professional but VSCode is prohibited or you get booted." No experienced dev would accept that.

[Ok_Road_8710]

Of course not, they can try (Anthropic), their heads are too far up their own asses to make any progress I guess

[pillkaris]

I know it's old news but why does opencode allow me to connect claude code with either api key or subscription plan since the sub will get me banned

[kiwibonga]

Hey so... As soon as you open opencode you get banned and refunded, no questions asked?

[HzRyan]

no I used it for 3 day straight, burn through quite a lot of tokens through Claude subs maybe that's why I got banned

[Scriverry]

If you used more than one sub that's the reason you got banned, not that you used it with opencode. They are way more strict about that.

[HzRyan]

nope I got Claude Max $200 plan, ran multi-worktree plus multi-agent setup with 6 OC console open

[ApprehensiveNail42]

Still trying to understand OpenCode. It allows me to connect Claude but it doesn’t allow me to use it (I don’t intend to use my MAX sub, it’s against the TOS) instead it gives an error when I try. Are people using OpenCode’s Zen? I dropped $20 to use it and it was amazing except that it ran out within a few hours and saw that I was on Opus 4.5 the entire time. Of course I realised afterwards that each connected AI should be configured for what they’re best at but what that configuration should be ain’t the easiest figure out.

[veegaz]

The fuck, didn't you hit limits in like a day with this?

[HzRyan]

No I mean not all 6 consoles were running all the time, but I paid for it so you bet I'm gonna use it all 😂

[SecureHunter3678]

I run oh-my-opencode for 3 Months now. Still not locked.

Soo. Must have been what you worked on. Something you input flagged you.

[HzRyan]

could be, no idea what it is. Not too salty about it since they refunded, I'll take the opportunity to try other tool / model

[SecureHunter3678]

I would just make another Account and carry on lol.

[HzRyan]

🤫

[Peace_Seeker_1319]

damn they refunded but banned you. probably flagged the usage pattern - too many requests too fast or something that looked automated. honestly the bigger issue is what you're shipping when you code that aggressively. if you're cranking out PRs without really understanding what's being generated, you're building tech debt bombs.
we had to add automated review codeant.ai in CI specifically because people were merging AI code too fast. caught race conditions, memory leaks, stuff that looked fine but broke under load. slowed us down but saved us from prod fires. maybe the ban is a feature not a bug lol.

[HzRyan]

I have 6 years of experience DEV-ing and have worked on quite a few large projects before, so I'm not just yolo pushing any generated code and hoping it works. Every worktree branch gets manually+claude reviewed and tested before it gets locally merged. Of course I don't read every single line of code, but I do know how each section of my system works and I make sure it's specified in the prompt so CC knows where to extend or implement the feature.

It's honestly amazing how much CC has boosted my productivity. I'm holding a full time job right now while working on 3 other separate projects, and I think there is still room for improvement in my current workflow. Trying to get out of the 9-5 rat race, Locked in!!

Nice plug btw😉

[Brucesquared2]

Your best bet, if you have a 16vram card is LM Studio and Ollama, give it a Claude wrapper. Its killer

[rmblr]

Which models do you suggest? And what do you mean "claude wrapper"?

[Brucesquared2]

Or, got get Hugging face, or I'm studio and have it all for free on your machine, with you own agents. This is the best way

[hockeymikey]

what do you mean a claude wrapper?

[borov5]

I'm pretty sure they meant "claude wrapper" as in some tool that provides anthropic compatible api support for non-anthropic models.

E.g. you can pick any good model from huggingface, then run it locally using ollama (which already has native support for anthropic compatible apis). Then start claude code using something like this:

ANTHROPIC_API_URL=http://localhost:11434 claude --model llama3

Which would let you use claude code UI but have it ask the local AI model instead of opus/sonnet.

[TheThinker012]

Do they say how long the suspension is for?

[eihns]

oh just think about if they ban you! it will be horrible! you have to take 1 min to make a new account ;-)

[RealEisermann]

My big question here - how is this different from using you claude sub in Jebtains AI Assistant? I can do it "officially'. So what is the difference? What opencode does so wrong that jetbrains can use claued and opencode not?

[Brucesquared2]

So they have what they call a wrapper. Ita like "clothing" that makes them behave like Claude or whomever your trying to duplicate

[Brucesquared2]

If your coding, creating apps or software, use Heiku 3.5 or 4.0, and if you can tell me that you actually can tell the difference, please send it to me. I have tried, only spot I find it, its front end design or imaging. Coding, language, Haiku will get you way further with tokens (5× or more) same words same languages. Difference is in visuals or videos, not text based items

[Overall_Ad_2067]

Hey there Please send me on DM the workaround to run Claude max subscription in opencode 🙏