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That’s very clearly a no, I don’t understand why so many people think this is unclear.

You can’t use Claude OAuth tokens for anything. Any solution that exists worked because it pretended/spoofed to be Claude Code. Same for Gemini (Gemini CLI, Antigravity)

Codex is the only one that got official blessing to be used in OpenClaw and OpenCode, and even that was against the ToS before they changed their stance on it.



Is Codex ok with any other third party applications, or just those?


Yes. You can build third party applications on top of codex app server. All open source. https://developers.openai.com/codex/app-server/


  Codex app-server is the interface Codex uses to power rich clients (for example, the Codex VS Code extension). Use it when you want a deep integration inside your own product.
It mentions 'Inside your own product', but not sure if that means also your own commercial application.


I think it's permissible. Zed uses it to power their Codex integration. OpenAI has been quite vocal about it.


By default, assume no. The lack of any official integration guide should be a clear sign. Even saying that you reverse-engineer Codex for apps to pretend to be Codex makes it clear that this is not an officially endorsed thing to do


Codex is Open Source though, so I wonder at what stage me adding features to Codex is different from me starting a new project and using the subscription.

But I believe OpenAI does let you use their subscription in third parties, so not an issue anyway.


Interested to know this too


But why does it matter which program consumes the tokens?


Presumably because their flat rate pricing is based off their ability to manage token use via their first-party tools.

A third-party tool may be less efficient in saving costs (I have heard many of them don't hit Anthropic LLMs' caches as well).

Would you be willing to pay more for your plan, to subsidize the use of third-party tools by others?

---

Note, afaik, Anthropic hasn't come out and said this is the reason, but it fits.

Or, it could also just be that the LLM companies view their agent tools as the real moat, since the models themselves aren't.


What if I'm only willing to pay if it support by tool of choice? Would you pay for a streaming service that enforces a certain TV brand?

Given the latest changes on Claude Code where they hide the actions

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47033622

it's likely more the other way around. They control how fast your subscription tokens are burned


> What if I'm only willing to pay if it support by tool of choice?

I don’t want to say that you won’t be missed but they will get over it.


But wouldn't a less efficient tool simply consume your 5-hour/weekly quota faster? There's gotta be something else, probably telemetry, maybe hoping people switch to API without fighting, or simply vendor lock-in.


> But wouldn't a less efficient tool simply consume your 5-hour/weekly quota faster?

Maybe.

First, Anthropic is also trying to manage user satisfaction as well as costs. If OpenCode or whatever burns through your limits faster, are you likely to place the blame on OpenCode?

Maybe a good analogy was when DoorDash/GrubHub/Uber Eats/etc signed up restaurants to their system without their permission. When things didn't go well, the customers complained about the restaurants, even though it wasn't their fault, because they chose not to support delivery at scale.

Second, flat-rate pricing, unlike API pricing, is the same for cached vs uncached iirc, so even if total token limits are the same, less caching means higher costs.


> are you likely to place the blame on OpenCode?

am I? Probably, but I get your point that your average user would blame Anthropic instead.

> even if total token limits are the same, less caching means higher costs

Not really, flat-rate pricing simply gives you a fixed token allotment, so less caching means you consume your 5-hour/weekly allotment faster.


> Not really, flat-rate pricing simply gives you a fixed token allotment, so less caching means you consume your 5-hour/weekly allotment faster.

Higher costs for Anthropic, not users. With a tool that caches suboptimally, you cost Anthropic more per token.


Again, subscription gives you a fixed allotment of tokens, doesn't matter if you consume them with claude code or with a 3rd-party tool, both get the same amount of tokens and thus cost Anthropic the same.

In fact it might even be better for Anthropic if people use 3rd-party tools that cache suboptimally because the cache hits don't consume the fixed allotment so claude code users get more of a free ride and thus cost Anthropic more money.


But again, there's other things to consider. People are more likely to blame Anthropic, not OpenCode, when they run out of tokens.

Presumably most people also do not use their full quota when using the official client, whereas third-party clients could be set up to start back up every 5 hours to use 100% of the quota every day and week.

It's the whole "unlimited storage" discussion again.


Why does it matter to the free buffet manager where do you consume the food? We may never know.


Because it could be over longer time periods than buffet hours.


They must be getting something out of it, because we sure aren't.


Cory Doctorow has a word for this..


They think their position is strong enough to lock users in. I'm not so sure.


It's enshittification - for those who didn't know.


They'll own entire pipeline interface, conduit, backend. Interface is what people get habitual to. If I am a regular user of Claude Code, I may not shift to competitor for 10-20% gains in cost.


They want that sweet vendor lock-in.




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