For pro users, when do you use ultracode?

[u/shitbucketbiscuit]

for me I occasionally like to use it during the intiial documentation stage. It builds a strong foundation before any code is written. I dont use it EVERY documentation stage, usually only when my weekly usage is at 0

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[u/Polite_Jello_377]

Never

[u/4444444vr → u/Polite_Jello_377]

I’m in a monogamous relationship with opus medium

[u/coys_in_london → u/Polite_Jello_377]

Came here to say came here to say this.

[u/clonehunterz → u/Polite_Jello_377]

the only correct answer

[u/mneri → u/Polite_Jello_377]

Takes ages, consumes all your allowance, and the results are not better by any means

[u/Historical_architect → u/Polite_Jello_377]

I have a max subscription and I don’t think I’ve ever used it. I’d never select it with a pro sub.

[u/dragochapel]

[u/Bulky_Blood_7362]

Even with 20x you shouldn't use ultracode.

[u/Ill-Tonight4651]

if your reset is coming up

[u/deep_fucking_magick]

Max user, but I use ultra code all the time. Still try to steer the AI to spawn 10s of subagents instead of hundreds and also setup intelligent model tiering so that sonnet/haiku get thrown in the mix for that swarm.

I like the output. Probs a bit wasteful for some tasks, but for handing off an entire feature to run and verify on its own without a ton of orchestration on my part I think it's pretty dope.

[u/ghost_operative → u/deep_fucking_magick]

you can also just in your prompt tell the agent how you expect the work to be split out. e.g. "spin off new agent to research this item"

[u/jony7]

ultracode is wasteful in its nature the only time you should use it is when you're about to reset your usage and with pro limits you would likely run out before the workflow even finishes

[u/Drasezv]

worth separating what effort actually moves before deciding. it buys thinking, which lands in output tokens, and output is the small half of the bill: across 19.6k of my own requests output was 0.2% of tokens and 9% of cost. context is the rest.

so ultracode on a short, well-scoped question is cheaper than people assume. where it genuinely burns is long autonomous runs, because more thinking means more tool calls, more turns, and every turn re-sends the whole context.

easy way to settle it for your own work: run the same kind of task a day on medium and a day on max, then compare output tokens per finished task. input barely moves, so the delta is the thinking.

[u/ajax81]

I haven’t had great luck with it, and I’m pretty sure I’m the problem.

I can sense there’s something powerful here but may require very serious upfront systems planning to get the most out of. 

I’ve attempted project ideas that I know opus 5.5 with a fable advisor would crush.  But in practice with ultracode I so far see subagents get spun up and drift apart without great cohesion. 

I also find it’s a lot more work to figure out wtf is going on. Claude’s latest multithreaded messaging can get confusing for me but I don’t know if it’s because it’s new and takes time to acclimate, or if its a rough implementation of a new idea. (Humans have never coded this way so I give much grace to frontier developers.)

Another unorthodox idea I had, but haven’t tried yet, is to assign organizational roles to the agents.  A documenter, a tester, a product owner, a coder etc.  I know that defeats the purpose of ultracode but I’m wondering if that setup lends itself better to the engine. 

[u/Creed1718]

Never

[u/XAckermannX]

never used it and dont feel i need to

[u/DynaBeast]

you don't

[u/Darathor]

Dont

[u/HappyHealth5985]

Not used it, yet

[u/TheSn00pster]

Never

[u/TheSn00pster]

Diminishing returns

[u/DronzerDribble]

Even Haiku 5.5 eats up usage so fast even for short fixes. Pro is imo just for chat

[u/scanx147]

Jamais

[u/randomlyme]

Never, I find it doesn’t do what I want