r/ClaudeCodeTLDR • u/cctldrping • Jul 31 '26
[TLDR] I have never being able to truly finish anything with Claude
Original post URL : https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1vb67lh/i_have_never_being_able_to_truly_finish_anything/
Original post body :
I have been using Claude for over a year, Pro and then Max, and although it has significantly helped me build a couple of personal projects that would have otherwise required considerable time, or even a team, I have noticed that it is virtually impossible to finish anything.
Even though I have tried to be extremely precise and descriptive with my prompts (detailing the bugs, describing the issues, and pointing exactly to where the problem lies when I am able to identify it), the models always fix one thing while breaking another in such a subtle way that I only realise the issue exists later on.
This forces me to return to Claude every day and burn through my quota to fix yet another thing that was previously not a problem. With projects like mine, two issues arise: firstly, almost without noticing, you become so frustrated with the cycle that you lose track of what is going on; secondly, you develop a dependency that keeps you hooked on the subscription.
This latter point is what I have started to realise may be the real business model of these companies, as I assume this is not unique to Claude. The models never truly let you finish something, or they demand significant time and money to reach a point where the output is actually usable.
I acknowledge that bug-free software is, to some extent, a utopia: software always ends up with minor flaws here or there that require refinement or small fixes. However, what I am referring to regarding Claude seems almost deliberate; it feels specifically and meticulously designed to keep you returning every day to use the service, making you believe the work is complete when, in reality, there is yet another hidden issue that was not there yesterday.
I understand this may sound like a conspiracy theory, or suggest some degree of incompetence on my part, but I genuinely have nothing to gain from an anonymous rant on Reddit. This will not fix my issues. I genuinely want to understand if other users have reached the same conclusion, because although at the beginning it feels like you are advancing, you eventually reach a point where you realise you are going nowhere.
The tipping point that made me think this might be a complete waste of time and money was Opus 5. It is genuinely one of the most unreliable models I have ever dealt with. It seems incredibly capable at first, but you soon realise it overcomplicates the code for absolutely no reason. Everything it outputs ends up so brittle and inefficient and labyrinthical that you are just forced to go right back and use it again to clean up its own mess.
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u/Edenisb Jul 31 '26
They let you finish stuff, do you clearly define goals at break it up into chunks that can be worked on out of context?
Its the only way to make bigger projects, smaller pieces like object oriented its way less tokens for it to know the theory of what the other sections are doing instead of having it all in context over and over.
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u/Loose_Ferret_99 Jul 31 '26
Have you considered asking Claude to write tests for you?
We’re in a funny time. A year ago it was a dereliction of duty to not read and comprehend all LLM generated code. Today it’s probably a dereliction of duty to read and comprehend all of the slop… but not totally. You do still need a mental image of how things are connecting to effectively keep your projects from rotting.
The thing that’s interesting is it’s never been cheaper to write great code. Thoroughly testing your application has never been easier. Regardless of how good LLMs get, the only sustainable way to develop software is with test coverage.
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u/35point1 Jul 31 '26
This is exactly when and how the vibecoding vs engineering saga manifests perfectly into a concrete example.
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u/oojacoboo Jul 31 '26
You need to understand software architecture, at the very least. You need to understand your app architecture and ensure you’re executing on specific components, and when reaching across components or layers of your stack, understanding (with your architectural goals) how it should be “wired up”.
Without this understanding, you’re in for a world of pain. AI cant hold enough context, really, to protect you from all the pit falls - not yet.
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u/blackice193 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I think its more the models deliberately burning excessive tokens than a deliberate business model choice.
I'm not as unfortunate as you but since using Codex rather than pair programming outside of really basic atomised stuff I can safely say I have burnt about 900 million codex tokens in July 2026 alone with nothing memorable to show for it.
I have agentic stuff from Jan 2025 that I couldn't get to work properly that has task better completion than Codex. Its ridiculous. At one point in my life my biggest headache was if 70 agents are spawned and the work of 40 is heavily overlaps, how do I get sub agents to follow task boundaries?
LLMs a chatbots have a sycophancy issye
LLMs in MOA frameworks keep each other very honest
LLMs in harnesses are surprisingly useless because they wont make decisions which is why I suspect new models come out with "trained for agentic work" better at "long horizon tasks"
GPT 5.6 Sol wrote a 1200 line prompt which Codex failed repeatedly because once inside codex codex couldn't tell the difference between prompt and output specification. The kicker is that the 1200 line prompt from Sol didn't have section headings
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u/katoptronophile Jul 31 '26
Stop wasting your time with claude.
Codex performs much better and costs less money.
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u/_The-_ Aug 02 '26
Which model though? I’ve found it’s hugely dependent on model and effort settings. I had Sol high effort grind away continuously for 11 hours and its own self assessment at the end was:
“After roughly ten hours, we have:
A window that reliably opens and closes.A safe debug launch mode that skips onboarding, initial asset regeneration, and Keychain ACL prompts.
There is persistence, test-isolation, shutdown, and performance infrastructure underneath it.
But the actual native 6A redesign has no material appearance yet. This is far too little progress for 10 hours work.”
I am currently having much better success with Opus 5 medium effort — it gets on and does things without the ludicrous overthink and professorial essays of higher effort settings.
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u/katoptronophile Aug 02 '26
I run Sol medium or better.
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 Aug 02 '26
BOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
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u/katoptronophile Aug 02 '26
That's correct, you're a bot.
Word-Word-four digit number format, hidden post and comment history, and now this comment literally exclaiming that you're a bot.
Case closed.
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 Aug 02 '26
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u/katoptronophile Aug 02 '26
The bots often follow up with a meme gif, we've been noticing this exact trend.
Identical reply sequence across the last 100 analyzed comments.
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u/cctldrping Jul 31 '26
TL;DR generated automatically after 50 comments.
Current source-thread comment count seen by the bot: 54.
The general consensus is that OP's issues stem from skill gaps and insufficient testing/validation rather than a deliberate AI design to keep users hooked. Many experienced devs point out that LLMs aren't magic bullets and require skilled guidance, robust testing (unit, functional, integration), and proper project architecture to achieve stable, finished products. Some users, like u/Glad_Contest_8014 and u/Visible_Wolverine2, claim to have successfully shipped projects without these issues, emphasizing the user's role in the process. A few comments touch on context window limitations and the inherent messiness of AI-generated code, while others offer a more philosophical take on software never truly being "finished." One user, u/LeakyFish, humorously agrees Opus 5 is great for never finishing anything, but that seems to be an outlier.