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# Claude Code cloud sessions go live, with a $100 or $250 credit to try them
- URL: https://www.thenewway.ai/claude-code-cloud-sessions-go-live-with-a-100-or-250-credit-to-try-them/
- Published: 2026-09-24T15:15:17.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-24T15:15:17.000Z
- Description: Existing Pro and Max subscribers get a one-time $100 or $250 credit, spent before plan usage. Two more stories inside.
- Author: The New Way

Claude Code's cloud sessions left research preview on Wednesday, with a one-time credit that's spent before your plan's usage. The same evening, Anthropic said Projects, which coordinates several cloud sessions from one conversation, can now run threads on your own machine, and its engineers said an internal model made claude.ai about 3x faster in two weeks. Its docs now also say Claude Code 2.1.281 reads AGENTS.md, the instructions file other coding agents use, with telemetry off. Three of those claims haven't reached its reference pages yet: the cloud docs skip the credit, the Projects docs still rule out local sessions, and the changelog skips the AGENTS.md fix.

📌

**In this issue**  
• [Claude Code cloud sessions go live with a credit](https://www.thenewway.ai/claude-code-cloud-sessions-go-live-with-a-100-or-250-credit-to-try-them/#claude-code-cloud-sessions-go-live-with-a-100-or-250-credit-to-try-them)  
• [Anthropic says Claude made claude.ai 3x faster](https://www.thenewway.ai/claude-code-cloud-sessions-go-live-with-a-100-or-250-credit-to-try-them/#anthropic-says-claude-made-claudeai-3x-faster-in-two-weeks)  
• [Claude Code 2.1.281 reads AGENTS.md with telemetry off](https://www.thenewway.ai/claude-code-cloud-sessions-go-live-with-a-100-or-250-credit-to-try-them/#claude-code-21281-reads-agentsmd-with-telemetry-off-anthropics-docs-say)

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## What changed in Claude Code

### Claude Code cloud sessions go live, with a $100 or $250 credit to try them

Cloud sessions, which run Claude Code on Anthropic's servers instead of your machine, are "officially available and out of research preview," Anthropic's @ClaudeDevs account posted Wednesday. A session "keeps running after you close your laptop," [the docs](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/claude-code-on-the-web?ref=thenewway.ai) say, and `claude --cloud` starts one from the terminal. Existing subscribers get a one-time credit: "$100 on Pro, $250 on Max." Hours later it posted "Sorry for any confusion!" and clarified that the credit isn't extra usage: it's what "your cloud sessions spend first, before falling back onto your normal plan usage." The docs, which don't mention the credit, say cloud sessions "share rate limits with all other Claude and Claude Code usage." Neither post nor the docs say when it expires.

The same evening, @ClaudeDevs said Projects, which runs several cloud sessions (it calls them threads) from one conversation, [can now run them](https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2102893178273874102?ref=thenewway.ai) "on your own machine." [Its docs](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/claude-projects?ref=thenewway.ai) still say "A local session can't be part of a project." Try it before you plan around it.

> Cloud sessions are officially available and out of research preview! They let you keep Claude Code working, even when your laptop is closed.  
>  
> Existing subscribers get a one-time credit to try them: $100 on Pro, $250 on Max. [pic.twitter.com/SvdB2ATkFw](https://t.co/SvdB2ATkFw?ref=thenewway.ai)
> 
> — ClaudeDevs (@ClaudeDevs) [September 23, 2026](https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2102871550974427462?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=thenewway.ai)

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### Anthropic says Claude made claude.ai 3x faster in two weeks

[Anthropic's engineers](https://claude.dev/blog/how-we-made-claude-ai-faster/?ref=thenewway.ai) pointed Claude, running an internal model "roughly comparable to Opus 5.5," at claude.ai and say it got "about 3x faster in a two-week sprint," across "more than three thousand changes" with no rollback. In Claude Code's desktop app, the client's share of a message send fell from 250 to 52 milliseconds for three in four sends. One find: a curly quote or an em dash could freeze the page "for about a second." The prompts, recreated from real threads, are in the post to copy.

> We made claude​.ai 3x faster in two weeks.  
>  
> Here’s how we use Claude to measure, debug and improve performance. Prompts and methods included.[https://t.co/mgvK8mJRuD](https://t.co/mgvK8mJRuD?ref=thenewway.ai)
> 
> — ClaudeDevs (@ClaudeDevs) [September 23, 2026](https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2102839691154427983?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=thenewway.ai)

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### Claude Code 2.1.281 reads AGENTS.md with telemetry off, Anthropic's docs say

Claude Code has read AGENTS.md, the instructions file other coding agents use, [since 2.1.277](https://www.thenewway.ai/claude-code-adopts-agents-md-the-shared-format-rivals-already-read/) landed on September 18\. Sessions through Amazon Bedrock, or with telemetry (usage reporting) turned off, skipped it, and "None of these cases print a warning," [a developer found](https://blog.szypowi.cz/p/claude-code-reads-agents.md-only-when-telemetry-is-on/?ref=thenewway.ai). [Anthropic's docs](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/memory?ref=thenewway.ai) now say that's fixed from 2.1.281\. The changelog doesn't say so. The [GitHub issue](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/95690?ref=thenewway.ai) is still open. On an older version, update, or put one line, `@AGENTS.md`, in a CLAUDE.md, Claude Code's own instructions file.

[Claude Code reads AGENTS.md only when telemetry is onClaude Code 2.1.277 added AGENTS.md support, but the loader sits behind a remote feature flag. With telemetry or nonessential traffic turned off, a local AGENTS.md is skipped without a warning. This is what I measured and the one-line CLAUDE.md I use instead.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9c/1f/9c1ff71c-2859-44c2-a962-1337982a6484/content/images/icon/favicon-2d23f593-7ed8-44a9-b6b4-6ae5a68c80cb.png)blog.szypowi.cz · Hitchhiking through raw bits](https://blog.szypowi.cz/p/claude-code-reads-agents.md-only-when-telemetry-is-on/?ref=thenewway.ai)

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