alt Hacker NewsThis is an unusual L for Anthropic. The unfortunate truth is that the engineering in opencode is so far ahead of Claude Code. Obviously, CC is a great tool, but that's more about the magic of the model than the engineering of the CLI.
The opencode team[^1][^2] built an entire custom TUI backend that supports a good subset of HTML/CSS and the TypeScript ecosystem (i.e. not tied to Opencode, a generic TUI renderer). Then, they built the product as a client/server, so you can use the agent part of it for whatever you want, separate from the TUI. And THEN, since they implemented the TUI as a generic client, they could also build a web view and desktop view over the same server.
It also doesn't flicker at 30 FPS whenever it spawns a subagent.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many QoL features in opencode that put CC to shame. Again, CC is a magical tool, but the actual nuts and bolts engineering of it is pretty damning for "LLMs will write all of our code soon". I'm sorry, but I'm a decent-systems-programmer-but-terminal-moron and I cranked out a raymarched 3D renderer in the terminal for a Claude Wrapped[^] in a weekend that...doesn't flicker. I don't mean that in a look-at-me way. I mean that in a "a mid-tier systems programmer isn't making these mistakes" kind of way.
Anyway, this is embarrassing for Anthropic. I get that opencode shouldn't have been authenticating this way. I'm not saying what they are doing is a rug pull, or immoral. But there's a reason people use this tool instead of your first party one. Maybe let those world class systems designers who created the runtime that powers opencode get their hands on your TUI before nicking something that is an objectively better product.
[^1] https://github.com/anomalyco/opentui
[^2] From my loose following of the development, not a monolith, and the person mostly responsible for the TUI framework is https://x.com/kmdrfx
Replies
> Anyway, this is embarrassing for Anthropic.
Why? A few times in this thread I hear people saying "they shouldn't have done this" or something similar but not given any reason why.
Listing features you like of another product isn't a reason they shouldn't have done it. It's absolutely not embarrassing, and if anything it's embarrassing they didn't catch and do it sooner.
I've used both CC and OpenCode quite a bit and while I like both and especially appreciate the work around OpenTUI, experience-wise I see almost no difference between the two. Maybe it's because my computer is fast and I use Ghostty, but I don't experience any flickering in CC. Testing now, I see typing is slightly less responsive in CC (very slightly: I never noticed until I was testing it on purpose).
We will see whether OpenCode's architecture lets them move faster while working on the desktop and TUI versions in parallel, but it's so early — you can't say that vision has been borne out yet.
An engineer on my team who is working on TUI stuff said that avoiding the flicker is difficult without affecting the ability to copy/paste using the mouse (something to do with "alternate screen mode"). I haven't used OpenCode (yet) but Google does turn up some questions (and suggested workarounds) around copy/paste.
Interesting that [1] is 30% zig as well as mostly typescript. That's a lot of native code for something that runs in a terminal (i.e. no graphical code required).
> unusual L for Anthropic
Not unusual, not for Anthropic.
I am curious, I haven't faced any major issues using claude code in my daily workflow. Never noticed any flickering either.
Why do you think opencode > CC? what are some productivity/practical implications?
> The unfortunate truth is that the engineering in opencode is so far ahead of Claude Code
I'm curious, what made you think of that?
> Anyway, this is embarrassing for Anthropic. I get that opencode shouldn't have been authenticating this way. I'm not saying what they are doing is a rug pull, or immoral. But there's a reason people use this tool instead of your first party one. Maybe let those world class systems designers who created the runtime that powers opencode get their hands on your TUI before nicking something that is an objectively better product.
This is nothing new, they pulled Claude models from the Trae editor over "security concerns." It seems like Anthropic are too pearl-clutching in comparison to other companies, and it makes sense given they started in response to thinking OpenAI was not safety oriented enough.
> The unfortunate truth is that the engineering in opencode is so far ahead of Claude Code.
If only Claude Code developers had access to a powerful LLM that would allow them to close the engineering gap. Oh, wait...
Update: Ah, I see this part: "This credential is only authorized for use with Claude Code and cannot be used for other API requests."
Old comment for posterity: How do we know this was a strategy/policy decision versus just an engineering change? (Maybe the answer is obvious, but I haven't seen the source for it yet.) I skimmed the GitHub issue, but I didn't see discussion about why this change happened. I don't mean just the technical change; I mean why Anthropic did it. Did I miss something?
How much do you use AI in your day? Are you a heavy user? Asking because your comment has a lot of "LLM mannerism"
Or just maybe submit feature requests instead of backdooring a closed source system.
My favorite is running CC in a screen session. There if I type out a prompt and then just start holding down the backspace key to delete a bunch of characters, at some point they key press refresh rate outruns CC’s brains and it just starts acting like it moved the cursor but didn’t delete anything. It is an embarrassing bug, but one that I suspect wouldn’t be found in automated testing.