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

Post by zymhan » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 2:56 AM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #116

btown wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by AbstractH24 » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:00 AM UTC

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…

Post by hoppp » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:13 AM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #268

hoppp wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I use it differently. I still mainly stick to web UI. I write a good prompt, paste the code then copy the output code and place it into my project. So in the end I hand assemble and I only give it what it needs to know so no extra context wasted. The human in the loop is of course the secret sauce but this way I am highly efficient, no vibecode and I work really fast too. Everything is audited.

I like it but how much context does it need for a complex program? If you're giving instructions and using its code, I imagine context is being passed back up in an exponential way. If not, and you give it a very thin context every time, how do you manage to prompt it enough?

Post by overgard » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:14 AM UTC

Post by modgate » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 3:29 AM UTC