Do Claude Code limits apply in VS Code and JetBrains?

Yes. Claude Code in an IDE is covered by your plan and counts toward the same limits as everything else. Anthropic's Help Center says: "IDE usage counts toward the same usage limits shared across Claude and Claude Code." There is no separate IDE allowance and no way to get extra room by switching surface.

What is covered

The same article lists Claude Code in IDEs: VS Code, Cursor and other VS Code forks, and JetBrains IDEs. They all use the same plan limits as the terminal.

More broadly, Anthropic states that usage of all Claude product surfaces (claude.ai, Claude Code, Claude Desktop) counts towards the same usage limit. For Max and Ultra, the separate weekly Fable limit is shared across Claude and Claude Code too. So a long chat on claude.ai in the morning leaves less for the editor in the afternoon. For the full picture, see how Claude chat and Claude Code share limits.

Runs started from an IDE extension count as Claude Code usage, per the Help Center article on monthly API credits. Which plan you are on decides the size of the limits; see which plans include Claude Code.

Where to see usage in VS Code and Cursor

In the VS Code extension, run /usage in the Claude panel. According to the VS Code extension docs, it opens an Account & usage dialog that shows your signed-in account and, on a claude.ai plan:

• usage bars for your plan's limits, such as the current session and the week
• recommendations, one per row, with a Fix button from Claude Code v2.1.305
• attribution tables for skills, subagents, plugins and MCP servers
• a Day and Week toggle for the last 24 hours or the last 7 days

Two things to keep in mind:

• The attribution and recommendations are approximate and computed from local sessions on this machine. Usage from other devices or claude.ai is not included in them.
• The plan limit bars themselves are account-wide.

Cursor and other VS Code forks install the same extension, so the same dialog applies there. The terminal version of this screen is covered in how to check your Claude Code usage with /usage.

Where to see usage in JetBrains IDEs

The JetBrains docs say the plugin runs the claude command in the IDE's integrated terminal and connects to it. So in IntelliJ, PyCharm and the rest, you are using the regular CLI, and /usage in that terminal shows the same screen as anywhere else.

Outside any editor, the Help Center lists Settings > Usage on claude.ai as a place to see "Current session", the weekly limits and usage credits, which reflects the same account.

The API key trap applies in the IDE

This is the part that surprises people. Anthropic's authentication docs say apiKeyHelper, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN apply to the CLI and the surfaces that wrap it, "including the VS Code extension, the Agent SDK, and GitHub Actions". Claude Desktop and cloud sessions do not read them; they use OAuth.

And the Help Center states that with an ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set, Claude Code uses the key instead of your subscription, resulting in API usage charges rather than included usage. So an API key in your environment can mean the extension bills the API while you believe you are on your plan.

How you can tell: in the VS Code dialog, a sign-in that plan limits do not apply to, such as an API key, shows the session's own cost and token usage instead of plan bars. In any Claude Code session, /status marks which credential is in use. The full explanation is in why an API key overrides your subscription.

If you do not want a key in play, unset ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and remove it from your shell profiles. Then quit and reopen the editor. That step is our suggestion, based on how environments work: an editor keeps the environment it was started with. The VS Code docs make a related point: VS Code may not inherit your shell environment unless you launch it from a terminal with code .. A key can also reach the extension without your shell, through the extension's claudeCode.environmentVariables setting or an env block in ~/.claude/settings.json, so check those too.

Users have reported API billing instead of subscription use in several situations, including a key sitting in a project .env file (issue 58083). Those are reports, not guarantees about every version.

Which account is the IDE using

If you keep personal and work accounts, confirm which one is signed in before you blame the limits. The VS Code Account & usage dialog names the signed-in account, and /status shows it in any Claude Code session. The Claude Code docs say separate accounts each get their own configuration directory, with its own login. If you point the VS Code extension at a second folder through its claudeCode.environmentVariables setting, the docs say a CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR entry only applies when it is an absolute path, because the extension does not expand ~. See how to tell which account Claude Code is using.

When the limit hits in the editor

The limit rules do not change in an IDE. When you reach a session limit, requests are blocked until the reset time in the message. Switching models does not restore access, because session and weekly limits are shared across models. Options Anthropic lists include waiting, usage credits and upgrading. Automatic continue, where Claude Code waits for the reset and picks the task up again, is documented for interactive CLI sessions signed in with a subscription, and separately for the Claude Desktop Code tab. Because the JetBrains plugin runs the CLI in the IDE's terminal, the CLI behaviour is what you get there. We did not find it documented for the VS Code extension's panel. See automatic continue after a limit.

Seeing the account bars without opening the IDE

If you use Claude Code in an editor all day, the limit that matters is the account-wide one, and it can change while you are in another app. Headroom is a free menu bar app, independent and not made or endorsed by Anthropic, that shows the session and weekly percentages for each Claude Code account signed in on your Mac. It reads the sign-in Claude Code already saved on your Mac and never sends a prompt, so checking does not use your limits. Download Headroom.