Background --bg sessions with --model fable gate to usage credits despite Fable weekly allowance headroom (Max plan)

Version: 2.1.231, macOS (darwin 25.5.0)

Bug: Sessions spawned with claude --bg --model fable immediately hit the "Fable 5 now uses usage credits" dialog and freeze, while interactive claude sessions on the same account run Fable 5 on the subscription allowance normally.

Evidence:

• Account A (Max): /usage showed Current week (Fable) at 52% — headroom remaining. Interactive Fable sessions ran on subscription. Every --bg --model fable spawn gated to credits ("you have $7.62 in credits").
• Account B (different Max account, same machine, after /login switch + fresh daemon): same gate on first --bg --model fable spawn ("You don't have usage credits yet"), no Fable bg session ever ran.
• --bg --model opus spawns run normally on both accounts.

Suspected cause: the background-dispatch path evaluates the Fable allowance check differently from interactive sessions — possibly comparing the Fable-meter percentage (which is % of the Fable allowance) against the 50%-of-weekly-limits inclusion threshold, or not resolving subscription entitlement for background sessions at all.

Impact: background/agent workflows can't use Fable 5 on subscription; users who press through the dialog get billed API-rate credits for usage their plan should cover.

Repro:

1. Max account with Fable weekly meter under 100%
2. claude --bg --model fable --permission-mode bypassPermissions "any prompt"
3. claude logs <id> → shows the credits gate; an interactive session started the same way runs Fable fine.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code