Anthropic Announces Claude Agent SDK Credits, Enabling Third-Party Autonomous AI Agent Harnesses Like OpenClaw to Run Again

Anthropic has added dedicated monthly Agent SDK credits to paid Claude plans, separating programmatic agent use from normal chat usage.

Uses like Claude Agent SDK, claude -p, Claude Code GitHub Actions, and third-party apps are now billed under these credits instead of the standard chat allowance.

This change reverses earlier limits that had blocked tools such as OpenClaw, making third-party automation usable again.

After the monthly credits are used up, additional programmatic usage is charged at standard API rates, which could raise costs for heavy users.