using the ai you already sign in to for automation

what the vendor pages say about sign-in

this is a dated reading of provider pages as of 12 november 2026. it does not decide whether a particular third-party app meets their terms.

what dusk actually runs

dusk bot has no model of its own. each bot has a job, chats and memory, with an ai you choose. it runs official command-line apps on the machine where the bots live, such as claude code and codex cli. you complete the sign-in yourself in the app. your message goes from your machine to the ai provider, rather than through dusk. ai usage is billed by your ai provider on your plan with them.⁸¹⁵

an app that runs the vendor's own program is different from one that handles your login itself. don't give an unknown app a copied session token just because a tutorial says it works. read the provider's description of the exact access method.

dusk bot is independent. it isn't owned by, paid for by or affiliated with anthropic, openai, google or xai.¹⁴

anthropic separates the binary from credential handling

as of 12 november 2026, anthropic's legal page says claude code must run as published, without modifying the binary or restricting its built-in authentication methods. anthropic's legal page says its rules don't prevent an end user from signing in to the unmodified claude code binary with their own claude subscription, including where a platform hosts claude code. that line was added between 16 and 30 august 2026.¹⁶ hosting requires agreement to anthropic's commercial terms; each end user must authenticate with their own credentials, and the platform may not pay for, resell or intermediate their claude usage.¹

the same page prohibits developers from offering claude.ai login in their own applications or collecting, storing or intermediating claude.ai credentials or session tokens. a support article, updated 7 october 2026, says signed-in agent sdk and claude -p usage still draw from plan limits; a separate login article reserves discretion to charge certain third-party tools to usage credits. read all three, rather than treating one sentence as approval of an app.¹⁹¹⁰

google and xai need their own reading

as of 12 november 2026, google's antigravity terms say third-party software accessing the service is a breach and may lead to suspension or termination. its faq separately says wrapping agy inside third-party coding agents or applications is not supported under consumer plans. if you use gemini on a consumer google plan, take that wording seriously: google says breaking it can get your account suspended. an api key or a local model avoids the question.⁵¹¹

xai's grok build docs describe headless scripts, bots and acp in other apps. those are the documented uses, not a statement about every desktop app. xai's consumer terms say you must not share account credentials. since 12 october 2026, supergrok is part of the x subscription for new customers; older standalone subscribers can keep their plan.⁶⁷¹²

the provider sign-in log puts dated changes in order so an old forum answer is easier to place.

an api key or a local model is another choice

in dusk, Settings, API keys accepts keys for anthropic, xai, openrouter, groq and services that speak the openai api. for a local setup, run ollama or lm studio and choose Use a local model. these are separate setup choices; an api key still has its provider's terms and bill.⁸

choose around the work you need and the access your provider documents. the claude plan and api comparison walks through the sums. for repeating jobs, read scheduled ai tasks before choosing where the bot lives.