ImportantSecurity & Privacy
HERMES.md: Anthropic bug causes $200 extra charge, refuses refund
A critical billing bug in Anthropic's Claude Code routes API requests to premium pay-per-use billing instead of plan quotas when git commit messages contain the string 'HERMES.md', causing unintended charges of hundreds of dollars while contracted capacity remains unused. This represents both a revenue leakage risk for customers and a potential compliance/trust issue for Anthropic, requiring immediate investigation into how system prompts influence billing logic and urgent communication to affected users. IT organizations using Claude Code should audit recent commit histories and billing statements for this trigger pattern, and consider whether content-dependent billing routing exists in other vendor systems.
Hacker News3 min read
A critical billing bug in Anthropic's Claude Code routes API requests to premium pay-per-use billing instead of plan quotas when git commit messages contain the string 'HERMES.md', causing unintended charges of hundreds of dollars while contracted capacity remains unused. This represents both a revenue leakage risk for customers and a potential compliance/trust issue for Anthropic, requiring immediate investigation into how system prompts influence billing logic and urgent communication to affected users. IT organizations using Claude Code should audit recent commit histories and billing statements for this trigger pattern, and consider whether content-dependent billing routing exists in other vendor systems.