Anthropic is clearly pushing to own the scaffolding that everyone uses.

· Bits and Bobs 3/17/26
  • Anthropic is clearly pushing to own the scaffolding that everyone uses.
    • Claude Code is best with Max, and they'll disable use of the description in other harnesses.
      • Claude Code apparently also works to thwart the KV cache of other models when used.
    • But the harness has no staying power other than UI polish.
    • Tokens are commodity, and for a user they are only necessary temporarily to create durable outputs.
      • Once you have the outputs, you don't need more tokens.
      • You only need tokens if you need to change it.
    • It's trivial to make a competitor to Claude Code.
      • The core agent loop is deliciously simple.
      • The hardest part is the TUI but those aren't that hard given enough agentic engineering, and in some agentic harnesses you don't even need a UI.

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