Anthropic announced on Wednesday, the 23rd, that cloud sessions for Claude Code, its coding agent, have graduated from experimental status and are now officially included in paid plans. The launch is accompanied by a one-time promotional credit for current subscribers, with $100 allocated to Pro users and $250 to Max users, valid until October 7. This change allows programming tasks to run in Anthropic-managed virtual machines rather than depending entirely on a user's local computer.
How Cloud Sessions Work
A cloud session can be started through the browser at claude.ai/code, the mobile app's code tab, the desktop app by choosing cloud instead of local, or the terminal with the command claude cloud followed by a task description. Each entry point opens an independent session, which means users can run several coding tasks simultaneously without sharing context. Anthropic's documentation states that sessions run on isolated Ubuntu virtual machines with laptop-like processing, memory, and preinstalled Python, Node, Docker, and Git.
Technical Considerations for Developers
One crucial technical detail is that the virtual machine copies the GitHub repository from the published branch rather than the version saved only on the user's computer. Users must push local changes to GitHub before starting a cloud session, or the agent will work with outdated code. After a session ends, users can ask Claude Code to open a pull request directly on GitHub or bring the work back to their own terminal using the command claude --teleport.
Promotional Credits and Subscription Limits
The promotional credit functions as a separate layer that is consumed before the normal usage limit included with the subscription. Once the credit is redeemed, the system deducts the promotional balance first, which allows intensive cloud session use without reducing the regular Claude Code allowance until the credit is exhausted. After the promotional balance is gone, cloud usage returns to being counted under the subscriber's existing plan conditions.
Key User Requirements
To use cloud sessions, users must have a connected GitHub account, and the promotional credit applies exclusively to this feature rather than general Claude use. The credit is consumed before the regular subscription allowance, which means subscribers can test the cloud environment without immediately reducing their standard limits. Anthropic also clarified that sessions continue running after a laptop is closed or powered off because the agent operates in a virtual machine maintained by the company.
Strategic Timing and Recent Releases
The announcement comes one day after Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5, its most recent model, which also renewed free usage limits for subscribers. Although the two announcements are distinct with their own rules and schedules, together they reinforce a strategic bet to make Claude Code less dependent on personal hardware and more similar to a continuous background work tool. This aligns with the broader industry movement toward artificial intelligence agents that operate autonomously for extended periods.
Anthropic's formal integration of cloud sessions into paid plans represents an important maturation of Claude Code as a professional coding agent. The one-time credits give subscribers an immediate incentive to evaluate remote execution without affecting their normal plan limits. Developers should remember the GitHub synchronization requirement and the October 7 expiration date to make the most of the new cloud capability.