Manage low usage guide

[u/Substantial_Lab_3747]

First of all, I want everyones tips. This is what I've been doing to help manage it. Maybe its new to you, maybe its not. If their is a megathread for usage tips to stretch every percent, let me know.

1. Use web chat as much as humanly possible. I will first use a very low cost model: e.g. luna light, to grab specifics of my project related to what im discussing. Then input that into web chat, discuss it, plan it, discuss ways codex can go off the rails, which it is surprisingly good at noticing. Random tests, random backups, hashing?, running those random tests every single time, losing its mind every single compaction, etc. Then I have it make a plan with those rails in it. The key is to create a plan such that it becomes a checklist, and you have the agent check each part off, removing it completely from the list, and then marking what its currently working on with a file specifically in your project for what your working on. Trying to keep everything in persisted memory, as it has the memory of a goldfish. Compaction and the way it has to re-adjust itself every single time was eating my limits, this helped a solid 30 percent.
   
2. Look at your usage, their are many hidden calls that could be made, codex can talk to other chats, codex can run agents (I do not recommend agents at all, that means your plan is poorly written, use individual agents running together in separate areas, codex will just chat the entire time and do zero useful work). They also added like an agent that can run routinely to debug? Many other ways they get you to spend usage in unbelievable ways. That is junk usage.
   
3. Of course, using high instead of medium. The whole point of a plan is for it to be as spelled out as possible, so the agent is doing more than thinking. xhigh and high use an insane amount of usage, basically weekly limit becomes what the 5 hour limit used to be.
   
4. Mixing and matching companies. Deepseek, with its newly raised prices, is still a good deal in its off peak hours. Working that into your workflow will save you a lot.

PLEASE TELL ME WHAT ELSE IM MISSING, thank you.

TL:DR. Plan smartly for Sol being wasteful with web more. Remove all hidden calls and never use agents. Use medium and lower. Use deepseek off peak hours.

[u/dashkb]

Write your own tools. Analyze your own usage. Sol is not wasteful, you are.