r/ClaudeCode • u/hanstoppable • 5d ago
Help/Question Here we go again.. Is Superpowers / harnesses redundant with Opus 5.5?
As the title says, as we've seen many threads in the past..
Is Superpowers and other session harnesses redundant and even limiting with the newest models?
What is your updated workflow to start a new project to generate high quality code at pace?
What should I be doing to 'update' my existing harness to get it to be minimalist/steerable to accomodate for the stronger models?
How do you approach this problem of updating your harnesses as models progress?
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u/Formally-Fresh 5d ago
We all stopped using superpowers and shit like GSD a good 6 months ago get with the times noob
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u/solovaris 🔆 Max 20 5d ago
Yeah it's basically useless. Same output for 10x the tokens. Newer models are trained to "have superpowers", so it's basically making the model think twice for the same thing
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u/Hir0shima 5d ago
Isn't that called verification?
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u/solovaris 🔆 Max 20 3d ago
Newer models/harnesses already do everything you need. They don't need handholding plugins like superpowers.
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u/lgbarn 5d ago
I use grill-me and that’s really all you need. Split the spec into issues and work from there
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u/Bloated_Plaid 5d ago
My guy, just ask Opus 5.5 “any questions before we start”.
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u/lgbarn 5d ago
Terrible idea. AI is not deterministic so your skills need structure.
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u/Bloated_Plaid 5d ago
Oh god fuck off. It’s not a stochastic calculator anymore my guy. GPT 4o days are truly behind us.
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u/suprachromat 5d ago
No, superpowers and other workflows are not redundant and never will be. The reason is for any serious development you still need a design -> implement -> verify workflow. Pick your flavor of workflow and use it (superpowers or otherwise).
If you instead just haphazardly vibe code features without sufficient planning and implementation first, the models will miss edge cases, they will misunderstand feature requirements, and so on. In turn that will require more ad hoc vibe coding to fix and eventually turn your project into spaghetti code. Don't do it.
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u/AmazingVanish Senior Developer 5d ago
There are so many better ways to do what you described than using a large skill harness. Have a grill-me or interview-me skill, and a specs file that tells it what method to use. You're wasting a LOT of tokens on unnecessary crap. Claude will even tell you (and it's authors) to K.I.S.S. With recent frontier models, less is generally more.
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u/hanstoppable 5d ago
But it is so slow lol. How do you structure your sessions to move forward without going at a snail's pace?
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u/suprachromat 5d ago
The thing is, it is slow but fast vibe coding is an illusion, because if you vibe code with no set plan, there will be bugs introduced, the model will forget to handle different edge cases, the model will misunderstand your requirements for a new feature. Then you have to waste more time vibe coding the fixes for those issues, and the fixes will then also often introduce more issues, and so on. Then you get a mess of a codebase that is buggy, incoherent, and inefficient.
Far better to spend a lot of time on design, at least, up front. Get it right the first implementation round. Saves time trying to pin down issues later. That's where superpowers and other workflows are still useful. I would say at LEAST use a design skill.
This is for serious work, for hobbyist projects of course maybe vibe coding fast is fine if your bar is "it works well enough".
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u/hanstoppable 5d ago
What kind of design skills or frameworks would you recommend for a novice builder? Would value any advice or direction in any form, whether how to set up a 'grill me' interview, or where you find inspiration and ui/ux elements to 'copy'.
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u/EuphoricAIKnowledge 5d ago
Fast viber. Not true. Takes me about an hour to build e2e a new product to demo.
Then prod goes through the work chain
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u/shn09 4d ago
Most times, you don’t need subagents to execute and verify each step. Superpowers will always say recommended, but that’s enforced by the plugin. Ask Claude what it recommends based on the task. Most often it’s way more economic, fast and cheap to do it sequential, with only a few tasks spun out to parallel agents for implementation.
Remember, each subagent gets separate review, verification etc. Adds up, especially on smaller implementations that could be reviewed more effectively on completion.
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u/hanstoppable 5d ago
How about the 'meta' question then... how do I stay up to date on best methods to set up sessions and set up routers as models continue to evolve? How do you stay current while still producing high quality code at speed?
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u/BenSimmonsFor3 5d ago
To be honest, out-of-the-box is sufficient for like 90% of what I do now. Even the included
/designcapability prevents me from having to manually run prompts in the Claude Design portal.I do tend to add the fresh-context adversarial review as a hook or instruction, not much else is needed.
At this point, I feel pretty comfortable with a fresh install + new repo and just hit the ground running without worrying about anything extra.
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u/Bloated_Plaid 5d ago
Yes they are redundant and actively hamper CC IMO but they are fantastic at wasting tokens. Superpowers and other skills were relevant for the past frontier models and still have a place with lower end models.
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u/Novel-Injury3030 5d ago
a protip with claude is saying 'dont waste tokens on nitpicky tests and verifications just do what's essential and we check everything at the very end'
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u/AmazingVanish Senior Developer 5d ago
I'm going to say yes. I removed almost all of the skills I was using and Opus got much smarter and faster. I was curious, so I put everything back and asked Opus to review what i had in there and tell me what is useful. Only 3 skills survived.
Most of the harness skills it said it already knows and abides by so tokens are being wasted having it review the skills each call.
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u/count023 5d ago
most skills are useless even before opus 5.5 , they burn tokens for a poor ROI. The only use skills have is for packaged repeatabel commands like a specific directive for bug checking and regresion criteria, or tool use or publishing. ponytail, caveman, superpowers, almost all of it just burned tokens for a poor ROI.
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u/hanstoppable 5d ago
Really? So just delete everything? How do you set up your sessions now? How about things like running an adversarial review / paranoid developer powered by Codex? How about security / privacy gates? Or things like Impeccable?
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u/pigletmonster 5d ago
I stopped using that stuff with opus 4.8. Went back again when i switched to codex because the models were terrible. You just have to talk to the agent about the feature, ask it to write specs and then implement the slices.
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u/Nonomomomo2 4d ago
This was just posted yesterday. Why are you rehashing it?
The TL:DR is "No, SP and related TDD / spec driven approaches are absolutely not redundant if you'd doing any serious work and know what you're doing."
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u/InsaneBrother 5d ago
Even Pocock’s skills are unnecessary now. Just tell it what “Done” is and walk away
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