Claude Code bug burns $200 credits

This looks less like a one-off billing glitch and more like brittle server-side routing keyed off prompt content, which is the kind of failure that can turn an AI coding assistant into a surprise invoice generator.

• –The trigger is surprisingly specific: uppercase `HERMES.md` in commit history, not a file on disk, which points to hidden prompt parsing or classification logic
• –The impact is concrete and user-hostile: quota on the paid plan remains available while the system drains separate extra-usage credits
• –The reproduction is strong because it isolates the behavior with a minimal local git repo and a single commit message change
• –Even if the underlying bug is fixed, the error message is too generic to help users diagnose billing-path issues before money is spent
• –For AI tooling vendors, this is a reminder that prompt context, billing policy, and usage routing need explicit tests, not just model-side evals