Claude Code reportedly gets a hidden rule against cloning existing games

Users of Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding agent, say it has started receiving a rule from Anthropic's servers that forbids recreating existing video games. The rule arrives through a server-side setting called tengu_heron_brook, which Claude Code inserts into the AI's own instructions. Anthropic has not announced the change or confirmed it, and on 30 October the company had not commented publicly.

The text comes from a post on X published on 30 October, which had passed 1.2 million views by the evening. Its author shared a screenshot of a Claude Code configuration file and said the rule appeared around 27 October. It reads: "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."

So a platformer, a roguelike or a game built on the user's own art is still allowed. A copy of a specific title is not, and renaming it does not help. The post's author said there is no setting to turn the rule off. Habr and Crypto Briefing picked up the story the same day. Neither had a statement from Anthropic, and the rule does not appear in Anthropic's published usage policy.

Read the full article on vpnlab.io: https://vpnlab.io/en/claude-code-hidden-rule-game-clones-tengu-heron-brook-3141