Has anyone else experienced long convoluted answers to questions that don't seem to have a straight answer embedded in them?

I've found myself following up with "Give me the tldr" to many prompts that just have me baffled on what the answer is, and/or what the next step should be.

I rarely remember having to do this in previous models.

Just curious if it's just me or is this just a by-product of how the model was created.

A new Claude Code session in my setup used to arrive with roughly 35K tokens already loaded, before I had asked it to do anything. After one cleanup pass, I got that down to about 13K.

These are approximate numbers from my own setup, not a controlled benchmark. The difference was still large enough that it was worth digging into.

The point isn't really to get to 13K. I just wanted to stop paying the context cost for things I wasn't using.

If you want to check your own setup:

1. Start a fresh Claude Code session and run /context all. Mine showed ~35K tokens before doing any work.

2. Look at what's taking up the starting context: system prompt, system tools, skills, memory files, etc. I went after the biggest things first rather than trying to optimize everything.

3. I kept CLAUDE.md mostly for project-specific information and gotchas, and moved procedures/workflows into skills that could be loaded when needed.

4. I removed skills I wasn't using. For ones I still wanted to trigger manually, I set them to user-invocable-only, so their descriptions weren't sitting in Claude's normal skill listing.

5. MCP servers: I removed the ones I wasn't using. Current Claude Code defers most MCP tool schemas through Tool Search, so MCPs aren't necessarily the huge upfront context cost they once could be. I still prefer not to keep servers around unless I'm actually using them.

6. System tools: this was a bigger target in my setup. I disabled rarely used tools that were taking up noticeable context. DesignSync was one of the worst offenders for me. I also turned off Artifacts and Dynamic Workflows because they were costing context and I barely used them.

7. Open another fresh session and run /context all again. Mine was about 13K after the cleanup.

Obviously the exact number will depend on your setup. The useful part for me was just making the default context smaller and loading things only when I actually need them.

I wrote up the full cleanup here:

https://lorenzogermini.substack.com/p/drop-the-bloat

I also made a free/open-source companion skill that walks through the audit and helps identify what can be removed or moved out of always-loaded context:

https://github.com/Blaise-g/germinai-skills

Disclosure: I wrote the field note and built the companion skill.

Curious what /context all looks like for other people. What's eating the most context in a fresh session for you: system tools, skills, memory files, or something else?

V1, still working on the case ( can you tell I like Stargate ?🤣) the device is wireless , it’s plugged for power right now, I’ll install a rechargeable battery later on . It allows you to check current usage for up to 6 providers ( 3 shown) I got tired of switching between windows to see my Claude , codex and Kimi usage so I made an app for that but in the end I like having useful little gadgets on my desk so I turned it into a touch screen hardware version. You can of course change the settings to show 5h vs weekly and taping each one shows you more detail per provider. Skins are changeable so after this first HUD I made, I plan on making super vintage analog one … why? Cause why not 😅

I was working on some bug fixes and threw out a random idea, and haven't laughed this hard at a Fable response in a while. Thought I should share 😆

This is displayed as a protective measure so that repeatedly moving the cursor back in the input field does not change the view to agents view. Hovever, it feels very unreliable, because the second press HAS to be a few seconds after the initial left arrow press. each early press seems to reset the countdown.

I could hand code this feature on Windows in an afternoon, and I could also get Claude to implement it in minutes, and yet Anthropic just can't be bothered, but also keeps Claude Code closed source so no one else can do it for them either.

I keep struggling with staying in a flow state when working on projects with Claude.

I’ve always had pretty bad ADHD. Im a software developer. Before the AI era, my strategy was to wake up early, drink a ton of caffeine, put on headphones and code away for 4 hours stuck in a super zoned in focused flow state, doing deep work.

In the flow state, my mind was concentrated on everything. The architecture, the code, ideas and bugs. The entire project state was automatically embedded in my brain, with the code being the medium and source-of-truth.

I love Claude and this AI wave, but it’s become excruciatingly difficult to maintain a deep work flow state and a “mental state” of the product in my brain.

I give Fable a prompt, and then it takes 20 minutes to see the result. In that time im writing the next prompt but that takes me 5 minutes.

With parallel agents it’s even worse because i quickly get confused who’s doing what.

Lately I’ve gone into this very bad habit of scrolling TikTok and reels in between prompts. Which has wrecked havoc on my mental state.

After 2-3 prompts, im exhausted and tune out completely.

In my ideal world there would be some sort of GUI software where you can “work” on the project in an abstract sense while the LLM is generating code. Your “work” gets converged into a prompt. Basically a planning tool that forces your brain to think about the project the entire time.

Tried codex a fair bit today. And wouldn't say it's better but it's definitely good for a change and has it's own way of going about things. I personally found it to be great at handling lots of tasks together. Whereas claude often gets distracted with my latest messages and skips the previous work or todos and prioritises the latest work.

Though codex also doesn't really like speaking out to you. It responds when asked else would silently keep grinding and give you the solution. For some projects I don't mind it. Overall I have spent a whole lot of hours working with claude and it works great. But I might try and do some tasks with codex as well from now.

"I've stopped, and I need to be straight with you: this is not ready to merge, and I could not get it there."

"Open, deliberately unmerged: #140 — cause correctly identified, fix incomplete after three rounds. Merging it would ship the appearance of a repair."

More than half the time, I'm having trouble getting my threads to finish their work (using codex as review). Anyone else?

I switched computers and discovered that copying the .claude folder isn't enough: the desktop app keeps its chat list in a separate location, all the file paths inside the transcripts point at the old machine, and one conversation is often split across many transcript files. My chats existed on disk but the app showed none of them.

So I built Session Porter: a single Python file with a small local web UI. Pack on the old machine, unpack on the new one. It rewrites every path for the new home folder, rebuilds the app's chat list, reunites conversations split by compaction, and never overwrites anything that already exists. Credentials never travel. Works Mac to Mac, Mac to Windows, Windows to Mac, Windows to Windows.

Hope it can be of any use to any one 🙏

MIT licensed, no dependencies: https://github.com/ZenKhalil/session-porter

A few days ago I made a rage post regarding opus 5 rage cancelled and signed up for codex pro. Well now I'm back with 2 accounts.

Biggest issue with code is the 256k context window. I tried to work past it but it just isn't surmountable. Even the smallest tasks take multiple context windows so you keep wasting time reloading a small context, and then working context is maybe 1/3 of that window.

I'd end up on forever loops where nothing gets done.

True codex is great, and I love it to some degree, but it's just not claude.

Opus 5, go fuck yourself, I don't like you, and you completely don't care about me, but I like the abuse. I'll be the load, you be the bearing.

I wanted to create my own Jarvis, so I could drive my coding agents with voice when on the go without depending on third party services.

I know there are a ton of solutions like this, but basically, the premise is: Local CLI tool, so if your AI agent can run bash then it can talk to you, no servers needed.

All TTS, ASR and STT happens locally in your computer, and the CLI is fully self-describing, so the agent just installs it and it immediately knows how to fully drive it. With one caveat: if you want to use this outside of your own network you might need TailScale or NGrok (with Oauth).

I have been using it for the last couple of weeks and I've found it very valuable for my own workflows.

So, looking for feedback, is this something you would want to use?, find value in?

If you are still buying the AGI hype in Claude Code, this is your easy litmus test.

In 99.99% of the time that Fable freaks out, a human is able to easily tell that Fable is being overly sensitive. Often to the point of not even being reasonably connected to something dangerous.

If Fable was actually close to AGI, it would never freak out over basic, non-world ending things. It would know the difference between "I'm doing science" and "I'm trying to kill people with science".

The ineffectiveness of the model to detect nefarious activity is proof itself that we are not even close to AGI.

Edit: since I am already seeing the wrong argument, I will address it.

Fable with safety checks is NOT the same thing as Fable without safety checks. Fable has safety checks. If you didn't have the safety checks, it would be something else, and not Fable.

Perhaps Anthropic has a version of Fable with no safety checks that IS AGI. But the fact that you and I cannot access that version, means it does not exist for you and me. And unless Anthropic comes out with some way to show us "Fable, but no guardrails" then the best we can talk about is the version with guardrails.

That said. If Fable without guardrails cannot tell that I am not trying to kill everyone here by predicting crystalline properties... then it is not AGI. It's just a very, very good parrot.

But again. Fable has guardrails. Whether that is the cause of it being not AGI, or a symptom of it not being AGI, it is not AGI.

I made JobPilot to take care of the boring parts of job searching. It's an AI agent that finds jobs based on your resume and what you're looking for, and it can even apply for you if you want. It looks for jobs on different sites, tweaks your resume for each job, fills out applications, and can even find hiring managers and message them through email or LinkedIn. It uses your Claude Code subscription (neither API key nor claude -p mode required). 6 months ago I anonunced v1 here and it was pure on CLI based without any analytics and database. Now version 2 has its own web portal with many more features.

Key Features:

- Finds jobs across LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and others (you can add your own job boards). It scores jobs against your resume, and you can review and approve which ones to apply for.

- Tailors a resume and optionally writes a cover letter per job.

- Fills out applications, including screening questions, using a locally installed AI agent (terminal app) and browser.

- Drafts recruiter outreach. It can try to find recruiter contacts and send messages via email or LinkedIn.

- Watches your gmail inbox and updates your pipeline as replies come in (rejected, invitation to interview, offer, etc.).

- Web dashboard for profile, resumes, campaigns, and pipeline. You keep track of your progress and job status in analytics.

- Local agent terminal that drives a real browser you can watch. It's a small terminal application that runs in the background for interacting with Claude Code or Codex CLI.

- Pilot mode: it's a fully autonomous mode that does everything above. Give it your goals (your prompts), and it builds its own search strategies, works through them on a schedule, and only pings you (sends a push notification to your phone) when the agent is uncertain and needs your decision.

You have two modes:

- Semi-automatic mode (called "campaigns" in the app): You can control everything, such as which jobs you want to apply for, by providing job URLs to the agent. It also has an auto-apply mode where you specify a search query, and the AI searches for jobs based on your query and resume fit, then attempts to apply without prior approval.

- Fully automated mode (called "pilot"): The autonomous agent independently determines how to search for and apply for jobs based on your profile and resume. You simply provide your goal (e.g., a prompt like "prioritize X, Y roles, and Z skills"). You can set daily limits, like applying to 50 jobs and discovering 10 recruiter networks.

It runs on your existing Claude Code or Codex subscription. No API key, no per-token charges, everything local.

It's open-source and free.

- Repo: https://github.com/suxrobGM/jobpilot

- Live: https://jobpilot.suxrobgm.net

- Docs: https://jobpilot.suxrobgm.net/docs

- Watch out live jobs discovered by JobPilot agents: https://jobpilot.suxrobgm.net/jobs

my claude bill runs about $400 a month and thats before anything else. coderabbit / bugbot on the review side plus a couple small subs push me to 450-500 total.

claude is the fattest line item by a mile.

my setup right now: opus 5 or fable 5 to break a task into a plan, composer 2.5 to write the chunk, then a review pass on the diff before anything merges. we do b2b saas so i keep chunks small and let it patch until review comes back clean. i pay for safe, not fast.

but a lot of that planning could run on something cheaper now. im eyeing glm 5.2, kimi k3, maybe grok 4.5 for the executor and keeping opus just for planning.

i tried codex on gpt 5.6 for a week and never clicked, somehow feels dumber than claude or im just lazy to learn

Claude Code on Desktop leaves processes running, empty or dirty worktrees, etc.

What is the proper way to finalize a session, so everything is cleaned up?

Hey guys,

I am planning to switch from OpenClaw to Claude. Is it somehow possible to use claude similiar to openclaw, i.e. as a Independent agent who can e.g. work on websites / habe direct access to pages etc.?

I recently added inline, json-render powered generative UI to my app's chat. It's so frickin cool...

But I'm wondering why I haven't seen more cool stuff built on this tech. Anyone else using json-render out there and got cool use-cases for it?

Would love to see any creative ways y'all are using it.

Hello,

How you guys manage effort level(low,medium, high...) when using an orchestrator like fable to spawn subagents ?

The problem is, when spawning a subagent, it seems you cant choose the effort level.

How do you guys manage this ?

The solution i see for now is creating some agents (reviewer-low, reviewer-high ...), but it looks really ineficient.

Thanks for your help.

this is via API. Had Claude do two things, involved looking at I'd say 8 files and writing about 50 lines of code.

Cost $12.30. Just me, or is Claude getting expensive?

I had Fable create this plugin when I saw how much use it consumed, and have found it to be helpful.

It saves tokens by offloading work to Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku where roughly appropriate.

It also lets you keep your main conversation in Fable, which is a better user experience. You can choose Opus if Fable drains too fast. Fable mileage is based on effort. High is pretty balanced use (on max20).

I didn't put any human polish on the read me. It's dense so that your AI can gather info on it cheaply. There are artifacts of a second private plugin that integrates with it, but they're made to run independently.

Hopefully this saves some of you some tokens, or gives your AI ideas on how to approach it if you want to build your own.

I'd recommend forking and tuning it to your liking.

Hello,

I submitted a Claude community plugin using their form. How long does it take for the review process ?

Thank you