Live data from Hacker News

Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

engineering.atspotify.com

121–130 of 159 posts

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#121
post #104

What great productivity gains are Spotify achieving in making their product worse?

The spotify desktop app is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company I have ever used.

https://fastpotify.rocks

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#122
post #118
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spotify desktop app is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company I have ever used.

Do you pay for Spotify? If so, I hope you never have to experience the dumpster fire that is their free version. Half the time you select a song to play it'll just start playing related tracks.

Yeah but that's by design for the free version, it's not a bug.

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#123
post #104

What great productivity gains are Spotify achieving in making their product worse?

The spotify desktop app is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company I have ever used.

Their web app functions perfectly as a replacement, however.

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#124
post #104

What great productivity gains are Spotify achieving in making their product worse?

The spotify desktop app is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company I have ever used.

I've gone back to the high seas and bandcamp myself. Spotify stopped having humans curate their playlists back in like 2016 or 2018 and the subsequent ML algorithms always recommend the same sounding stuff, nothing ever new or interesting. I'm back to getting recommendations in real life and literally talking to bands after their sets on who they listen too.

Never been happier listening to music ATM.

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#126
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also use hooks to force the use of subagents for this. The stack here is entirely unnecessary

I’m currently on codex can it also this? I find it hard to make accurate benchmarks in token use for these kind of changes because I don’t keep repeating the same tasks. Basically I run in luna high or extra high continuously with a terra subworker dedicated to planning and difficult research questions. Then I end with a final review in Terra or Sol depending how big the feature is.

yes, and you can do it entirely in developer instructions (AGENTS.md/SKILLS.md). No hooks or other executables needed. Check out `codex-subagent-router` for an example. Its overly complicated, and has a few things wrong, but it mostly works. In short:

  - Write ~1 paragraph of developer instructions (AGENTS.md): Use subagents for tasks that can be decomposed, worked on in parallel, or delegated. Describe common examples. I put a reference to a "how to use subagents" skill for more details. The "skill" isnt' always read (as subagents arent always useful) which saves some tokens. But you pay the once-per-session read-skill cost when its relevant.
  - Describe how to use subagents in ~1 page or less (SKILLS.md): use them for sub tasks. select model size/quality based on task ambiguity, scope, unbounded work, or conflicting requirements. Use reasoning effort for complexity, interdependence, or ambiguous success criteria. How to evaluate complexity & common subtask examples across the spectrum. give tasks a relevant name like "model-family_version_reasoning-effort_task-description" so you can actually understand what theyre doing by name.
  - in dev instructions (SKILLS.md) provide a table of agent names (low complexity summarizer, bounded implementation, complex implementation), model+effort (gpt-5.6-luna medium, gpt-5.6-luna high, gpt-5.6-sol medium), and short description of 2-3 task "types" for each.
  - Explain they can use "default" or specify their own custom model settings if needed.
  - Define your list of subagent profiles in ~/.codex/agents/ which matches names (low_complexity_summarizer.toml) from previous. In each you'll need to set model, reasoning, and `developer_instructions` that describe *how* to do a task, *not what* to do.
Details to know:

  - IMO subgent profiles are "task centric" because `developer_instructions` are required. You can't just specify model & reasoning, you also have to give valid developer_instructions that will be merged in to every session/prompt. I address this by defining a few different agents for tasks that are commonly encounted like summarization, synthesis, planning, implementation, etc. The different agent profiles (~2-5 per category) will "scale" the model + reasoning based on the complexity and ambiguity. This work pretty well in practice. And you don't need to over due it, the harness/agent can still launch a "custom" profile that uses the parent sessions developer instructions.
  - You need to use agent profiles with codex because "v2" models (terra & sol) can't launch "v1" models (luna). There are a couple of code paths to avoid this, the agent profile is the simplest. 
Anyways, write you skill & subagent profiles and it basically "just works".

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#127
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spotify desktop app is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company I have ever used.

I've gone back to the high seas and bandcamp myself. Spotify stopped having humans curate their playlists back in like 2016 or 2018 and the subsequent ML algorithms always recommend the same sounding stuff, nothing ever new or interesting. I'm back to getting recommendations in real life and literally talking to bands after their sets on who they listen too. Never been happier listening to music ATM.

Remember their new algorithm also prefers and promotes Spotify's own tracks they don't have to pay any royalties for and the slop.

Related: https://bedrocknews.com/article/technology/2026/apr/11/ai-im... and https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/01/spotify-ghost-artists-c...

Just skip Spotify at all.

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#128
post #104

What great productivity gains are Spotify achieving in making their product worse?

The spotify desktop app is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company I have ever used.

It sounds like you have never used an Atlassian product, lol

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#129
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spotify desktop app is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company I have ever used.

Their web app functions perfectly as a replacement, however.

Maybe it is different for you, but for me the web app is flakey at best. A bug which has been a pet peeve of mine for the last 6 months: if you leave the page open for half an hour with nothing playing, sometimes all the play buttons just stop working and you have to reload the whole page before you can play anything again.

Re: Portal by Spotify cut my Claude Code token usage by 90%

#130
post #57

I wish websites would stop messing with the scrolling behavior.

If I said what I really think should happen to designers and "devs" who fuck with scrolling, dang would have to delete it and ban me.

Ublock on Firefox mobile seems to keep scrolling unfucked on this page for me. (Designer/"dev" of this page still sucks wet hobo socks.)

Post reply on HN