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Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

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Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#251
post #5

There's definitely a way to use Claude code that is token conscious. I've tried throwing unsupervised agentic software factory workflows against the wall, and they burned through my tokens like nobody's business but didn't produce much. Supervised, human-in-the-loop process on the other hand is much more productive but doesn't consume nearly as much. Maybe that's why everyone's pushing agentic approaches so much.

I think it's great. People at a broad scale are getting first hand experience with resource management. It's a fairly cheap way of doing it too (in contrast to: learning this by managing humans) and we can all benefit from the skill transfer.

I find myself observing how my lead manages meetings ... "ah, this is like when I do that with Claude", "this is where he wants to understand what happened, like when I ask Claude" ... it's funny.

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current thinking is automated agents is what turns this from an industry in the tens of billions to a multi trillion dollar one. So yes you are right on the money, agents stimulate demand for this thing they've built.

"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy"

AI is expanding to meet the needs of expanding AI. Why worry about jobs? AI will provide plenty of work. If anything, I worry we'll be working more, not less. All that AI will need someone to vouch for it and to scapegoat when it makes mistakes.

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#253
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the enterprise level though, its going to be hard to want to use a service in which costs are not predictable, and keeping those costs under control requires employee training.

There's no fucking training to mitigate a slot machine.

LOL, that's a sophisticated and sometimes slightly unpredictable multitool.

If this is the "analogy" you go for, you don't seem to be suited to make that comparison.

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could understand the appeal of using Claude Code inside VScode rather than Copilot. I feel like I'm missing something obvious.

I'm a little the opposite, what's the point of using an IDE with AI? I genuinely don't get it? These days I just use Claude Code Desktop or Claude Code in powershell. Standalone, not inside and IDE. Honestly, I'm using Desktop more and more as it gets more features. The IDE is for me. No AI in it at all. If I want to get Claude to do something specific to a file I just @ the file.

For Windsurf at least, it makes it easier to control context. I can simply drag and drop a file from the IDE into the chat.

I can also click on a file referenced by the AI and have it open immediately in the IDE so that I can inspect it.

Finally, it is a pain to write long, multi-line prompts in a CLI where you can't easily click around to edit different parts.

The primary weakness I've found in IDE based UI is that it struggles to get through the corporate security in order to run commands.

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Claude does good work but reviewing it all properly takes quite a bit of time. It got to the point I started having trouble maxing out my weekly allocation. Dealt with that by going all out and making an agentic parallel code review skill. Basically an infinite TODO list generator. Now I'm definitely getting 100% of the usage I paid for. It really burns tokens like nobody's business, and catches a lot of issues…

I’m interested in how this works in practise - I guess you’ve written a skill to do code review, then your Claude.md file tells it to use it after every change as a bg task? So does this work as a background task while Claude is working on the next ‘feature’?

I did the same thing - task oriented work, each task a md file. I have a harness based on it: https://github.com/horiacristescu/claude-playbook-plugin

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m interested in how this works in practise - I guess you’ve written a skill to do code review, then your Claude.md file tells it to use it after every change as a bg task? So does this work as a background task while Claude is working on the next ‘feature’?

I just committed the skill to my dotfiles repository. https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/tree/master/~/.clau... There are many "critics", one for each quality I want reviewed. Correctness, consistency, maintainability, security, testing... Everything I could think of, and I keep adding more. https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/tree/master/~/.clau... The scrutinize skill is the entry point. The Opus I'm tal…

I would love to see the codebase once you reach the zero issues point.

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#257
post #5

There's definitely a way to use Claude code that is token conscious. I've tried throwing unsupervised agentic software factory workflows against the wall, and they burned through my tokens like nobody's business but didn't produce much. Supervised, human-in-the-loop process on the other hand is much more productive but doesn't consume nearly as much. Maybe that's why everyone's pushing agentic approaches so much.

Yeah. Claude does good work but reviewing it all properly takes quite a bit of time. It got to the point I started having trouble maxing out my weekly allocation. Dealt with that by going all out and making an agentic parallel code review skill. Basically an infinite TODO list generator. Now I'm definitely getting 100% of the usage I paid for. It really burns tokens like nobody's business, and catches a lot of issues…

I really don't like how the payment plans work with the providers right now. I feel this pressure to use all my tokens for the week, often just "wasting" them. But also, I want to take advantaged of the subsidized tokens in Claude Code and Codex for as long as I can.

There is this real danger that our thinking, and the things we make, become bloated without constraints.

IMO software has gone to shit since both mobile phones and laptops mostly have massive amounts of compute. We always seem to use it to the limit, just because it's there.

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m interested in how this works in practise - I guess you’ve written a skill to do code review, then your Claude.md file tells it to use it after every change as a bg task? So does this work as a background task while Claude is working on the next ‘feature’?

I just committed the skill to my dotfiles repository. https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/tree/master/~/.clau... There are many "critics", one for each quality I want reviewed. Correctness, consistency, maintainability, security, testing... Everything I could think of, and I keep adding more. https://github.com/matheusmoreira/.files/tree/master/~/.clau... The scrutinize skill is the entry point. The Opus I'm tal…

Thanks for sharing that, I am looking to improve my agentic use, and it will be useful as I develop my own path.

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#259
post #159

The title is somewhat bait. It reads like MSFT is using less AI, while in fact it's just a force swap to Copilot. Arguably, Copilot is GPT 5? Not sure what the CLI offers behind the covers.

I disagree. As someone who just got a new Windows laptop with Copilot baked(forced) in I've tested Copilot a lot. It. is. so. bad. It feels like it's at least 1-2 years behind the current top models.

Your Copilot free offering isn't the Copilot they're using within the company for coding assistant. It's confusing I know.

Re: Microsoft starts canceling Claude Code licenses

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the enterprise level though, its going to be hard to want to use a service in which costs are not predictable, and keeping those costs under control requires employee training.

You can put a limit on token spend and provide training (and even pre-configured workflows) on how to limit token spend. Like the other commenter said: cloud spend can also spin out of control if you don't pay attention, yet we've found ways to keep it under control (training, guardrails, limits, transparancy).

The problem that I see is what you do if someone runs out of tokens. It doesn't very well work to say "well I guess you just get fired because you can't work at full speed for the rest of the month".

Personally, this feels like its just trying to push the work of managers in allocating resources onto developers so that they have more work to do and can be blamed if anything goes wrong.

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