Addy Osmani says Anthropic added two sentences to the Claude Code prompt on Opus 5.5. Those sentences steer the tool away from recreating someone else’s specific game, because using Claude to infringe intellectual property is against Anthropic’s usage policy.
Osmani posted that confirmation on October 30, 2026. His X bio reads Claude Code at Anthropic. He wrote: “We added two sentences to Claude Code’s prompt on Opus 5.5 to steer it away from recreating someone else’s specific game because using Claude to infringe IP is against our usage policy.”
He also wrote: “Original games, genre games, and games built from your own designs and assets are meant to keep working.”
Then he added: “We’ll continue to iterate to ensure we’re striking the right balance. In the meantime, if Claude turns down something that’s yours, send it my way.”
Osmani left those two new sentences unquoted. His post names no setting and gives no date for when the change took effect. No game title appears in it.
What a posted config file shows
Earlier that day, an X account named chasm posted a screenshot of a local file. The window title reads .claude.json, and the corner label reads Claude Code config. The highlighted line says: “Do build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user’s own designs and assets. Don’t build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original.”
That line sits under the key tengu_heron_brook. The model field in the same file reads claude-opus-5-5. Those words are what the screenshot displays. Osmani’s reply does not use the key name, and it does not say whether anyone can switch the instruction off.
Anthropic’s own product page shows Claude Code as a terminal window with the line “Welcome to Claude Code!” That graphic is the image on this story. It does not show the config file.
What Osmani says still works
Osmani separates a copy of one existing game from three kinds of work he says should continue: original games, games in a genre, and games built from a person’s own designs and assets. The screenshot uses the same three allowances, with slightly different wording.
Opus 5.5 is the model he names on this prompt. Tech My Money covered that model’s launch and pricing in a separate story, Claude Opus 5.5 cuts prices and matches Fable 5.1 on most work. The prompt note here is not that launch.
Anthropic also has other Claude products in market. Claude Duet is a research preview for US Pro, Max, and Ultra plans, and it is a different product from this Claude Code instruction.
Osmani closed by asking people to contact him when Claude turns down a project they own. He said Anthropic will keep iterating on the balance.
