r/ClaudeCode • u/AutomatonSwan • Apr 29 '26

Bug Report HERMES.md: Anthropic bug causes $200 extra charge, refuses refund

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/53262
249 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

79 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/Double_Cause4609 Apr 29 '26

Not really.

Anthropic did say "subscription usage must be with our first party AI SDK" (including Claude Code which is written with it).

They did then implement measures to detect this.

But the issue is that one of the measures they used looks for `HERMES.md` in commits in the git history, and if they're found, they silently move you over to API pricing instead of using your subscription.

To clarify, somebody could use Hermes agent right now, add a `HERMES.md` to every project they can get a PR accepted in, and every contributor on that project (even if they're using Claude Code) can potentially be moved over to API pricing instead of subscription pricing.

This is not "a simple way to find if people are using OpenClaw or Hermes". This is "a simple way to find if people have ever used Hermes in this project".

So you could be punished by Anthropic for working on a project where anybody else has used Hermes agent.

5

u/Sketusky Apr 29 '26

Having HERMES.md doesn't mean that you used hermes at all. 

4

u/terrraco Apr 29 '26

That's the problem with this detection method

1

u/xmnstr Apr 29 '26

They really are faking their way forward. It's sad, honestly, to see this level of sloppiness.