Topic
Claude Code is included in every paid Claude plan and can also run on pay-as-you-go API keys, cloud accounts or a gateway. Which credential a developer uses decides which bill a request lands on, and context, caching and model choice decide how large that bill gets.
The phrase now means two things: Anthropic's Claude Security scanner, and the job of keeping a coding agent with shell access from doing harm. Permission modes, the sandbox, managed settings, MCP policy and gateway routing, mapped to the incidents that shaped them.
Claude Code talks to one API format, and anything that speaks that format can answer it. Routers, gateways and local servers use that to swap in other models. The configuration takes minutes; knowing what breaks on the way takes longer.
OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code now cover the same ground, from terminal to IDE to cloud sessions. They still differ on defaults that matter: who sandboxes what, how plans meter usage, what is open source and how an administrator locks a fleet down.