> Claude Code has been inherently limited to conversations

How so? I’ve been using “claude -p” for a while now.

But even within an interactive session, an agent call out is non-interactive. It operates entirely autonomously, and then reports back the end result to the top level agent.

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skippyboxedhero 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Because of OAuth. If they gave people API keys then no-one buys their ludicrously priced API product (I assume their strategy is to subsidise their consumer product with the business product).

You can use Claude Code SDK but it requires a token from Claude Code. If you use this token anywhere else, your account gets shut down.

Claude -p still hits Claude Code with all the tools, all the Claude Code wrapping.

	▲	adastra22 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That’s not what this subthread is about. They’re talking about the subagent within Claude Code itself. Btw, you can use the Claude Agent SDK (the renamed Claude Code SDK) with a subscription. I can tell you it works out of the box, and AFAIK it is not a ToS violation.
	▲	TeMPOraL 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> If they gave people API keys then no-one buys their ludicrously priced API product The main driver for those subscriptions is that their monthly cost with Opus 3.7 and up pays itself back in couple hours of basic CC use, relative to API prices.
	▲	tobyjsullivan 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I believe they’re talking about Claude Code’s built-in agents feature which works fine with a Max subscription. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/sub-agents Are you talking about the same thing or something else like having Claude start new shell sessions?
	▲	blibble 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		can't you just rip the oauth client secret out of the code?