Anthropic updates Claude Code policy to ban subscription-based third-party use

Anthropic officially updated its Claude Code legal and compliance documentation to explicitly ban using subscription authentication for third-party services. The policy clarifies that Free, Pro, and Max subscription credentials cannot be used to power external products or services. The update drew attention on Hacker News as developers who had been building tools on top of Claude Code subscriptions face a choice between API pricing or discontinuing their products.

View full digest for February 19, 2026