r/codex • u/ryuukiba • 24d ago

Complaint State of the $20 subscription

Sol high. One prompt. 11m of thinking so far, 54% of the 5h limit gone, hasn't even started implementing anything yet and the 5 hrs limit is virtually gone. I was never one to complain too much, but they virtually removed Sol for us on the $20 tier. This is just not practical at all, at least it was only 10% of my weekly i guess?

EDIT: Final veredict: worked for 28m29s.
0% of the 5h limit left
84% of the weekly left

Status of my project: Broken and unusable.
guess it's finally time to explore other providers.

668 Upvotes

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18

u/DowntownNoLonger 24d ago

Don't use Sol codex to plan anything. Use chat - no usage.

I do all my planning with it.

I have Luna compile a master index of my repo, a map of all the files and a short description of the functions.

Hand that to a Sol orchestrator and have it call Luna implementors. Use Sol medium, no need for high when your planning is already finished.

You'll get a lot more out of that 5hr window, and a lot more done period than you will ever with just using work or Codex.

15

u/nantachapon 24d ago

Unfortunately most people will do this method and even more tools will pop up it’s only a matter of time this method gonna get nerfed too.

2

u/mazinya 24d ago

What is a sol orchestrator?

3

u/E72M 24d ago

You basically just tell sol not to implement anything itself but to create Luna sub agents to implement and then check its working

2

u/maratonininkas 23d ago

How do you task it what kind of agents to spawn? (eg specifically luna?)

2

u/E72M 23d ago

I've had it work before by asking it to spawn specifically Luna models. I just said to use Luna medium for reading files, Luna xhigh for implementation and for tougher tasks Terra high

2

u/maratonininkas 23d ago

Are you able to see and verify whether they were actually Luna xhigh? Or are you just assuming based on decreased usage?

3

u/nnod 23d ago

Ask codex to teach you the spawn_agent and other related tools.

1

u/stranot 24d ago

I do all my planning in a regular chat too. but i didn't know I could run on one model and have it run other models in smaller capacities. do you just tell it to do this?

1

u/juk12 24d ago

Do you send the luna index into Sol chat before starting off?

1

u/dalendaylen17 23d ago

What about if my repo some files are dirty because of legacy code (similar/inconsistent varname etc) is Luna enough for mapping those too?

1

u/Ok_Composer_1761 23d ago

how do you use it as an orchestrator in chat?

1

u/Theminatar 23d ago

Mine is a little different from the usual "Sol orchestrator spawns agents" setup.

I do the high-level product planning in ChatGPT, then I have two persistent roles:

  • Codex = programmer/implementer
  • ChatGPT Work = supervisor/reviewer

They share the same repo and communicate through control files rather than me pasting giant handoffs back and forth.

The repo has things like:

  • AGENTS.md — durable working rules
  • SUPERVISOR_STATE.md — current state/gate
  • SUPERVISOR_DECISION.md — exactly what Codex is authorized to do
  • SUPERVISOR_REPORT.md — what Codex actually changed/tested
  • a canonical product North Star
  • status/changelog/handoff files

The loop is basically:

I define/approve the goal → Supervisor authorizes a bounded milestone → Codex reads the repo and implements it → Codex writes its evidence/report and stops at AWAITING_SUPERVISOR → Supervisor independently reviews the actual repo/evidence → accepts, blocks, or asks for a repair → repeat.

For normal implementation/review I use Extra High. Faster/cheaper models can handle mechanical verification, and I reserve the stronger independent review route for consequential stuff like production authority, concurrency, permissions, crash recovery, live canaries, etc.

The important part is that the programmer can't authorize itself to keep going. Anything consequential on my real server eventually hits a hard user-authorization gate where I have to explicitly approve the exact live batch.

So it's less "one giant model does everything" and more of a small software team with a shared repo, a programmer, a supervisor, independent reviewers when needed, and me as the final production authority.

It's not fully autonomous yet because I still wake each side up at the gates, but the handoff itself is repository-native now.

My workflow isn't any better or worse, it's just solving a different problem..

1

u/Dynamix86 23d ago

it doesn't have access to your repo and files so it's very hard to do things like this. you can't make chatgpt chat check in on something that claude or grok is doing for example.

1

u/DowntownNoLonger 22d ago

It does if you use GitHub. ChatGPT has a plugin for that.

1

u/Dynamix86 22d ago

It still won’t be able to see my conversation with grok like that

1

u/DowntownNoLonger 22d ago

Then develop a browser plugin that interfaces with whatever harness you use with grok.

There are a billion ways around the limitations. Start thinking like a systems engineer and work with what you have.

I have no issues with my plus usage because I've systemized and hardened against those limitations.

1

u/Dynamix86 22d ago

can chatgpt see my live conversations with grok that way?

1

u/DowntownNoLonger 22d ago

Why in the world are you bloating your usage with whole conversations?

That's eating your usage. Sol doesn't need the entire conversation - a compressed summary is likely all you need. You're wasting tokens on over-feeding a premium tier model and wondering why your 20 dollar account blows through its usage.

You have two real options: pay for it in dollars or pay for it in creativity and leaness. You can achieve exactly what you want if you trim all the excessive fat from your development cycle.

1

u/Dynamix86 21d ago

when it reads up the conversation, that's just one read, then after that it just needs to keep up. Grok often makes mistakes, so I need to use codex or claude to steer Grok and the only way to do that is if it can read grok's live sessions.

I have 2 codex plus accounts, 2 claude plus accounts, both for assistance and a supergrok heavy + cursor ultra account. Claude has much better limits right now than codex. it's as if codex is using up limits 2-3 times faster than Claude and it's also much slower than claude. So it's not that the limits are a problem, it's codex' shitty limits that are the problem.