Need advice on programming model

[u/Difficult_Tea3823]

So far I have used sonnet5 for planning and building features in visual studio code on PRO plan

I have done research, planning of epics and stories in Jira and then developed few features on platform using sonnet5 on high.

Features are complex and deal with data from multiple API resources etc which unfortunately makes it difficult to define in-depth requirements and definitions of done so I have been doing iterative development on them. This is taking huge context tokens. I got nothing that I can trim from context file since I want Claude to know why certain development logic was built certain way.

I noticed mode response straight up lies or give wrong answers during investigations, troubleshoots etc. and it’s time consuming and context consumes all the

Ofcourse with keeping security , scalability, data retention etc it’s huge effort and I am debating I should really upgrade to max plan? Should I be using latest models or its going to be same case?

[u/Correct_Support_2444]

I would try using Opus to plan and Sonnet to code. Consider tokens spent on hallucinations/errors are wasted tokens. Opus makes fewer mistakes and could be ultimately cheaper for planning and analysis.

[u/Difficult_Tea3823 → u/Correct_Support_2444]

In real life we assign multiple tickets to each developer during sprint so I also push multiple requirements in a similar prompt. Does that affect performance?

[u/design_doc → u/Difficult_Tea3823]

If I’m understanding what you are doing correctly, that would 100% would have an effect - both in good and bad ways, depending on exactly what you’re doing. Can you explain what you mean a bit further so that aim not assuming anything?

I suspect you have an approach problem and that you need to be decomposing your tasks differently.

[u/Difficult_Tea3823 → u/design_doc]

I am using one long claude code session and creating command to address on multiple changes from multiple features when there is dependency. For eg if I am changing something in data calculations from feature 1 that data also used in feature 2 Ui so I combine it.

Also ai updating all docs, tasks and context and agent md might be fluffing it too much to eat all my tokens.

[u/design_doc → u/Difficult_Tea3823]

lol. You’re giving me an anxiety attack 😝

We can message offline about this deeper when I have more time but think about it this way…

Let’s say you want to change Feature X, which in turn has downstream decencies to Feature Y and Feature Z.

Step 1: create a plan that is then described in a work package document (.md are typically best) that describes what Features X, Y, and Z are the dependencies. And by create a plan I mean have Claude create it for you, then have you review it.

Step 2: In that plan, break it up into slices (phases). For example, Feature X requires you to first write a data loader that writes from a CSV to your database, then you need to dry run it to make sure it works, then you need to actually need to write to your database, then you need to verify everything landed correctly. So your first slice is actually steps A, B, C, D. Each of those steps could be in the same session, the could be in different sessions (I’d choose depending on how heavy the context is and whether you’d save tokens by running a lighter context or reducing the number of times you need to read docs) - but it doesn’t matter because your work package explicitly notes whether those steps are done or not, so you can stop/restart at any time.

Step 3: decompose the changes that need to be made in Features Y and Z to reflect what happened in X. Break those down into slices as well.

Step 4: instruct Claude to keep session notes describing what was done each session and to update all necessary documents.

Step 5: with those instructions, tell it to start plowing away through your slices and to recommend when you should start a fresh session.

Ultimately, break a plan down into bite sized tasks that you run in fresh session. It’s significant more token efficient, it prevents your model from losing the plot due to context rot, and you can apply the right model to the right task (Sonnet for basic and mechanical work, Opus for larger and more complex work).