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Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

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Re: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

#111

Post by stefan_ »

claw-el wrote: post #88
korrectional wrote: post #26

My opinion is that claude code uses more tokens simply because Anthropic makes more money that way and forces people into their subscriptions. This is supported by the fact that they won't let you use your sub on a different coding agent. I use pi btw.

Once I realized that Anthropic is a token merchant, I start to understand Anthropic’s decision more. They are always finding reasons for you to use more tokens through them unless the users revolt or demand some guardrails.

But they gave us double the tokens! Then a limited time more usage! Then even more tokens "off peak" times! Then some new model released but apparently it inherently used 1.69x tokens! Then Fable is here but "it uses much more usage". But only until ~~the US banned it~~ ~~7th July~~ ~~19th July~~ who even knows.

At this point I think Dario is just in his wellness retreat adjusting a revenue/profit dial.

Re: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

#112

Post by erikus »

SyneRyder wrote: post #65
llm_nerd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fable's subscription inclusion theoretically ends EOD today. Anthropic put a wishy-washy "if we have capacity we'll continue it" thing, and given how competitive GPT 5.6 Sol is, and it is included in OpenAI's subscription, I fully expect Anthropic to extend Fable or they will have a serious exodus on their hands. Competition is good.

Anthropic have extended Fable access again to July 19. The notice should pop up in your Claude Code now when you start a new session (also announced on the ClaudeDevs X account first).

Ah, thanks. It's been hard to plan around these last-minute changes. I rushed to implementation on a spec I should have spent more time on because of the looming deadline.

Re: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

#113

Post by adastra22 »

mcv wrote: post #53

What really burns tokens is sub agents. I once gave Claude Code a pretty big task, and it immediately launched 7 sub agents which burned through my budget before even one of them was finished. Tried again 5 hours later: same result. If I let the main agent do the same task sequentially, it was no problem at all. I don't know if it's really just communication and orchestration that makes sub agents so inefficient, or…

--disallowedTools Task

Re: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

#115

Post by beezlewax »

mcv wrote: post #53

What really burns tokens is sub agents. I once gave Claude Code a pretty big task, and it immediately launched 7 sub agents which burned through my budget before even one of them was finished. Tried again 5 hours later: same result. If I let the main agent do the same task sequentially, it was no problem at all. I don't know if it's really just communication and orchestration that makes sub agents so inefficient, or…

Spawning a bunch of agents seems to happen randomly. I almost never want this.

Re: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

#116

Post by adastra22 »

btown wrote: post #76
mcv wrote: post #53

What really burns tokens is sub agents. I once gave Claude Code a pretty big task, and it immediately launched 7 sub agents which burned through my budget before even one of them was finished. Tried again 5 hours later: same result. If I let the main agent do the same task sequentially, it was no problem at all. I don't know if it's really just communication and orchestration that makes sub agents so inefficient, or…

As a counterpoint: in a complex project, Fable's "curiosity" may be exactly what you want for an exploration and planning stage - not just for the orchestrator that turns your prompt into different angles with which to explore, but for each subagent whose task is to search the codebase for one of those "angles." If you truly want no stone unturned, letting those subagents spawn their own discoveries, and recursively…

The curiosity is inefficient though. So many times I have to stop the agent and tell it to just fucking write the code and try compiling it. Otherwise it will fill its entire context tracing through the program logic to derive from the code itself whether the thing it is about to do would work. It completely fails to notice it can just… try.

Re: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

#117

Post by cyanydeez »

btown wrote: post #76
mcv wrote: post #53

What really burns tokens is sub agents. I once gave Claude Code a pretty big task, and it immediately launched 7 sub agents which burned through my budget before even one of them was finished. Tried again 5 hours later: same result. If I let the main agent do the same task sequentially, it was no problem at all. I don't know if it's really just communication and orchestration that makes sub agents so inefficient, or…

As a counterpoint: in a complex project, Fable's "curiosity" may be exactly what you want for an exploration and planning stage - not just for the orchestrator that turns your prompt into different angles with which to explore, but for each subagent whose task is to search the codebase for one of those "angles." If you truly want no stone unturned, letting those subagents spawn their own discoveries, and recursively…

doesnt intelligence involve knowing where to start and what to read and not just throwing everything in the bag.

im on local only AI and subagents are only valuable when they avoid polluting the context with extraneous file reads and parallel exploration when fixes are linear.

as OP is on about, subagents burn tokens because they arnt a deterministic intelligent gatherer but like pooluring water into a maze hoping the exit will illuminate.

Re: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

#119

Post by docheinestages »

wolttam wrote: post #36
docheinestages wrote: post #20

I've been trying various harnesses like Pi, OpenCode, Qwen Code, and Nanocoder. A common problem I keep running into is failed tool calls, regardless of the model. What is the best harness and on-device model combination right now?

> and on-device model combination right now That would depend entirely on what your device is. This sounds likely not to be an issue with the harness, but the capabilities of the models you've tried. I experience almost no tool call failure using my nothing-special harness and DSv4 Flash.

I'm looking for something that runs on an M5 Macbook Pro with 48 GB of unified memory.

Re: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7k

#120

Post by rendx »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #107
mcv wrote: post #53

What really burns tokens is sub agents. I once gave Claude Code a pretty big task, and it immediately launched 7 sub agents which burned through my budget before even one of them was finished. Tried again 5 hours later: same result. If I let the main agent do the same task sequentially, it was no problem at all. I don't know if it's really just communication and orchestration that makes sub agents so inefficient, or…

This is why I happily use Codex. I run it basically 24/7 on a ~500k line repo, and only rarely run out of quota before the end of the week. My experience with Claude Code was very good until about 2.5 months ago, and then it suddenly turned unbelievably terrible for me. I have not and will hopefully never look back. I still have PTSD from how ungodly terrible it was that last week of using it.

> I still have PTSD from how ungodly terrible it was

Please, for the sake of everyone suffering from actual PTSD: Don't. It's hard enough already for victims to communicate what difficulties they are facing without people watering down terminology like that.

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