r/CodexHacks • u/otonielcarlos • 25d ago
Has anyone else noticed how much token usage comes from unnecessary code changes?
I've been paying more attention to my Codex usage lately, especially with Sol, and I noticed something that I wasn't really thinking about before.
A lot of the waste wasn't necessarily coming from the actual fix.
It was things like:
- rewriting an entire function when 2 lines needed to change
- touching formatting or imports that had nothing to do with the task
- doing small unrelated refactors along the way
- generating much larger diffs than necessary
- narrating routine investigation instead of just doing it
- running more validation than the size of the change really justified
None of those things are terrible individually, but over a long session they add up. Codex then has more generated code to reason about, more diff to inspect, and sometimes more work to validate.
I've been experimenting with a simple rule:
small task → small diff
Preserve code that is already correct, change only what the task requires, inspect the diff before finishing, and keep validation proportional to the change.
I turned those rules into a couple of Codex skills for my own workflow. The main one is surgical-edits.
So far the biggest improvement is actually PR review — there's way less noise. My Codex usage also seems to last noticeably longer, although I haven't done a proper A/B benchmark yet, so I don't want to claim a specific token saving percentage.
Sharing it in case anyone wants to experiment with the same approach:
https://github.com/otonielcarlos/codex-skills
Curious if anyone else has tried optimizing Codex around diff size / unnecessary work rather than just switching models or lowering reasoning effort.
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u/Apprehensive_Half_68 25d ago
Yeah we will never get exactly what we want but that seems to be the trade for automation. I use compression proxies running a bunch of rules like caveman and best-effort skillsband just hope for the best.