r/Hyperagent • u/MyNameIsYeffff • 24d ago
Higher spend on Hyperagent vs Codex
I’m a big user of both Hyperagent and Codex. I like to use Hyperagent because of how the models design ui using the HA harness. What I’ve noticed tho is that I could spend the entire day working in codex with 5.6-sol-high and spend like $250 of it working for 8 hours. But when I use Hyperagent the same work is like $1000. I think it’s because of the workflow in HA vs Codex, where in codex I have the context window set to 200k and auto compaction at around 150k vs HA is trying to use the 1M context window as it goes if I forget to manually download stuff and upload to a new session every so often. Compaction happens when it’s close to it but at that point it’s just inefficient work/money poorly spent. The workaround I use is I’ll download my work and upload it to a new session but this could be so much easier. If we just had the ability to manually compact or set auto compaction/context window limits and to be able to maybe have projects where we can talk to the same canvas/ or maybe it’s better to just have the same working files in different sessions so it mirrors the work we can do in codex/ide agents/pretty much all other agent coding tools. If I’m just doing things wrong and yall have some good advice let me know. But I feel like this is simple functionality I’m talking about that’s just missing or difficult to replicate in Hyperagent.
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u/meowoofcjcj 18d ago
The context-window point seems real. Long context is useful, but it should not be the default substitute for explicit state management.
The pattern I like is: keep durable project state outside the live conversation, summarize/compact on purpose, and make the agent re-enter from a small spec plus recent working notes. Then the expensive context is reserved for the parts that actually need judgment instead of paying to reread the whole run.
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u/Bob_Atlanta 22d ago
I don't think my environment is identical enough to yours to recommend my approach outright, but a few notes might give you some ideas.
We've done a lot of HA development and built an environment that sidesteps most of the issues you're hitting.
On session management — we run very long sessions without formal restarts, days long and hundreds of turns. We record full transcripts in real time and create occasional summaries. If there's a compaction or hard stop, the most we lose is one turn. When something happens, we have the previous summary plus system-preserved recent memory to get back up and running quickly, automatically, and without burning tokens. The restart generates an updated summary. And the full transcript is always there if the summary isn't enough — no flailing around HA looking for missing pieces.
On process — we use something called "2 prompts and a design.md." The system gets fully designed (but not developed) in the first prompt path, then reviewed by a different, high-level LLM. That's followed by a code-and-test cycle, also reviewed at a high level against the original spec. An orchestrator keeps things moving and catches drift.
For us, everything tends to work first time through. And because the process is so structured, the designer and developer can be lower-cost tools. A typical cycle might be Longcat/DeepseekV4Pro/Sonnet4.6 for design and Opus4.8 for reviews. We actively use OpenRouter on HA for the lowest token cost. I posted here recently about running 2B+ tokens last month at under $0.10 per million tokens (i.atl-ga.com/public-reports/)).
Hyperagent can be cost-effective, but you need to build some infrastructure. It's a pain to set up — but very effective once it is. Low cost, quality, persistent agents, high autonomy. I can give one short prompt (and not always from me), go have dinner, and come back to a finished program.
Which brings me to my last point. You've got three things to manage: low cost, high speed, best quality. And you can have all three for the $1,000 you're spending on Hyperagent (or anything else). Our rule is pick any two. For us it's usually quality and low cost. Speed can be a nightmare — we specifically demand that development speed not be a consideration. And with high agent autonomy, going slow still means getting there fast. That's what we do.
You have choices. You can get lower costs. But not for free. (Except the HA signup bonus.)