Claude June 15 Update Breaks Headless Agent Workaround — Interactive Sessions Still Work on Your Plan

The June 15 Anthropic update broke the claude-cli backend workaround that many OpenClaw users relied on after the April 4 cutoff. Here's what changed and what still works for running Claude Code agents on a flat-rate plan.

What Broke

The claude-cli provider in OpenClaw routes through claude -p (headless execution). As of June 15, claude -p, the Agent SDK, GitHub Actions, and third-party integrations now draw from a separate credit pool:

• Pro: $20/month, no rollover
• Max5x: $100/month
• Max20x: $200/month

A 24/7 agent will burn through those credits in days. The previous workaround — using claude-cli after Anthropic's informal nod — is dead.

What Still Works

Anthropic's line is headless vs. interactive. Interactive Claude Code sessions (where you actually type in a terminal) remain on your flat-rate subscription. claude -p and the Agent SDK are metered; interactive Claude Code, Claude.ai, and Cowork are not.

To keep an agent running on your plan, you need to maintain a real interactive Claude Code session and have your agent work through that session, not the claude-cli backend. This is essentially a terminal session that stays open.

A Ready-to-Use Workaround: Sushi

A developer built Sushi (MIT licensed) that does exactly this. It:

• Boots as itself every session (not a blank terminal)
• Keeps long-term memory via SQLite (bilingual, remembers weeks back)
• Integrates with WhatsApp
• Uses /agent:import to pull your existing OpenClaw agent in ~15 minutes

The billing trick: even the always-on service uses the real interactive claude binary, never claude -p. It bills as if you're sitting at the terminal. Sushi is listed on Anthropic's Official community plugin marketplace.

Caveats

• Shared limits: Your agent shares Claude Code's weekly rate limits with your coding, so a heavy job at 3am can eat into your allocation. The developer schedules heavy work during sleep hours.
• Security: Running unattended 24/7 is not trivial. The always-on instance should run in a container with no credentials and locked-down egress. Messaging uses pairing + allowlist, with an opt-in gate blocking destructive tools on unverified messages.
• Not permanent: If Anthropic decides to call a never-closing automated session "programmatic", this breaks too.
• Claude-only: Sushi runs strictly on Claude. But the agent's memory and personality are files on disk, so you can move it elsewhere if needed.

What's Still Rough

Re-attaching the session after a restart and sharing the rate limit with normal coding are unsolved. The current approach: replay an identity prompt on reattach and strictly block the agent during personal coding hours.