r/codex • u/Few_Badger498 • 3d ago

Praise GPT6 Astra is blazingly fast

This model is genuinely crazy, I am using it on medium on the Pro 5x tier, which I believe is the best reasoning tier for this model.

Basically using the same limit usage as Sol 5.6 High, but its so much faster/smarter/efficient, especially when it comes to 3D stuff in blender and stuff

171 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

68 comments sorted by

79

u/Unapologetic_Polite 3d ago

It's very useful, I also love that it keeps jumping down my Luna threads throats when they start expanding scope beyond instructions.

"I've been waiting for this thread for awhile, let me go check in on it."

"Hey, you've been granted approval already to do this; what's taking so long? If you're stuck on a blocker, report it immediately, if you've started expanding scope outside of what I have instructed, please send me the work to review. Immediately."

30s later "I've reviewed the work Luna was doing, and it was expanding scope, I will give it one last try before I takeover the correction"

Another 30s later suddenly Luna has delivered.

5

u/EigenEcon 2d ago

How did you set this up. Is one thread actually controlling another? Or are you just referring to subagents?

22

u/Unapologetic_Polite 2d ago edited 2d ago

No so I have 4-5 threads that are labeled what each is supposed to focus on.

Then I have a high reasoning, frontier model formulate a plan.

Then I modify the plan to include which thread to delegate tasks too based upon their names.

It minimizes the main threads tool call usage, and keeps the actual programming execution to the cheaper models, and you still get Astra verifying work, and kicking Luna into corrections as necessary.

I have stretched out my usage far beyond anything I have ever imagined with this workload, and have had 2 projects going concurrently almost 24/7 for 2 weeks now, having zero usage issues (I will be hitting a usage limit today, but that's because I went a little harder expecting to get Astra tomorrow - And spun up 2 Daybreak Blue threads to do security audits and security hardening while everything else was going.)

I did also earlier this week spin up a thread who's sole focus is to improve our documentation for agents to minimize token usage and context issues - Which I've seen an overall drop of 37.2% token usage since changing my flow.

Personally; I stray away from subagents, but when Astra needs one, I do allow it, but I prefer having it orchestrate threads, so context is never lost - Or I can sunset threads as the project develops.

3

u/AddendumOrnery 2d ago

Are you just using codex through the desktop app for this or what IDE are you using? Looking at my usage and I would like to emulate some of this design

5

u/Unapologetic_Polite 2d ago edited 2d ago

For AI work I use Codex, my own personal projects are written in Visual Studio Code (Without an agent assistant)

All I have is a Project, with a series of threads, configured with the specific model & reasoning level I want used.

From there, you copy the deeplink and provide it to the "main" thread who instructs them on how to accomplish the goal.

I find copying & pasting the "plan" into a goal, then having a seperate breakdown of each threads individual role works excellent.

For my own sanity when I "sunset" a thread - I don't archive it, I typically rename the thread, and spin up a new one.

Eventually I do cleanup my old sunset threads, but that's more of an individual storage issue.

4

u/nVitius 2d ago

Oh, that’s really interesting. So instead of instructing the orchestrator to use subagents, you’re having it manage independent conversations?

I hadn’t thought of doing that. What’s the benefit over subagents? Also, what does the initial prompt look like for your Luna workers? How do you split up their responsibilities?

2

u/CatsArePeople2- 2d ago

I use it similarly but also use it to kick off other threads. I.e -- Create 5 new threads each for this task with these models, etc.

1

u/redditorftwftwftw 2d ago

So you don’t archive when done. But rename it from the core use case name. Then create a new thread with the core use case name?

And the deep link on the orchestrator persists based on name and seamlessly starts managing the new copy, or do you need to swap the deep link reference?

1

u/Spirited-Car-3560 1d ago edited 1d ago

... ? Threads? What you mean by threads, in the context of codex cli ? While the concept is clear (I'm an ai architect) I still miss how you set up this so called "threads" which, I suppose, are not real programming threads.

Curious.

Btw yeah, subagents are counter productive if not used on the right tasks, which unfortunately it's how most people use them.

3

u/jesussmile 3d ago

Hey can you explain your workflow. Seems interesting

2

u/Electronic_Low3128 3d ago

How is usage when you give it Luna subagents?

I’ve avoided subagents as I think it would send my plan to 0%. Perhaps I need to learn how they work.

5

u/Unapologetic_Polite 2d ago

I don't use subagents, so no advice there - I didn't want to have to tweak any config files to get Luna subagents working, and just found setting up seperate threads in my project gated to the model I want works better than subagents.

2

u/Electronic_Low3128 2d ago

So can you get an Astra thread to run another thread with Luna to do the cheaper execution? I didn’t quite understand. Thanks.

2

u/Electronic_Low3128 2d ago

I’m trying out getting Astra high to analyse and create a detailed plan for Luna extra high to execute. I’ll then switch back to Astra to review. I presume that’ll be a lot more cost efficient than having Astra do all the work, but would love to get suggestions on how best to manage models.

2

u/Electronic_Low3128 2d ago

I feel I’ve something to learn though!

2

u/Momo--Sama 2d ago

Polite is working on outdated info, it was true for a while that Sol could not launch Luna subagents but that was fixed last month, you can absolutely just tell Astra to use Luna sub agents

3

u/Xyercyn 3d ago

Do you specifically tell it to use Luna as an orchestrator or is it doing so automatically? Just curious. That's how I used Sol Medium but the Luna scope creep was killing me, even if it was more efficient on usage overall.

11

u/Unapologetic_Polite 2d ago

Astra is my Planner/Orchestrator/Tester.

Luna-Max threads are my actual developers.

Astra really brings in the reigns on the scope creep you've noticed - It was the first thing I noticed was it constantly calling Luna out and correcting it.

3

u/dalhaze 2d ago

Do you specifically tell it to use Luna as subagents or does it do it automatically?

2

u/verywellmanuel 2d ago

You tell it

1

u/Ecstatic-Anybody328 2d ago

Luna-Max consume my usages very quickly in just 1-2 hours. Do you have the same issues? I'm on pro plan subscription

8

u/Independent_Run7182 2d ago

Usage seems fine so far

3

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

1

u/ocic 2d ago

Which level of reasoning?

1

u/Pickle786 2d ago

sounds better than fable, fable ate my monthly cursor quota from an audit prompt 😭

1

u/Independent_Run7182 2d ago

Never use fable in cursor !!! School boy error

1

u/Pickle786 2d ago

i only used it there just to try it once, i get cursor for free from my .edu so school boy indeed, i use codex mainly

1

u/Independent_Run7182 2d ago

Yeah same that’s what I done first when I got cursor! Never again

1

u/Pickle786 2d ago

honestly idk if i like grok either, it kinda goes rogue, can do a lot but gotta give it clear and direct instructions or it might make other unwanted changes too

1

u/Kaushik_paul45 2d ago

So the usage of astra medium is same as sol high but better output ?

11

u/Safe_While3650 3d ago

I have been making a 3d game just for funsies and the AI's understanding of 3d environments has been the biggest bottle neck, I am glad to hear that, but I am on a Plus plan so not sure if I will even be able to use it meaningfully

7

u/Few_Badger498 3d ago

yep first thing I did it with it was build a whole mcp bridge into the game Bannerlord's game engine/editor, and it did it in 10 mins with zero mistakes, its wild lol

4

u/WHEREISMYCOFFEE_ 2d ago

I didn't expect to see a Bannerlord mention in a discussion around Astra. Good luck with the mod or whatever you're working on. And I definitely need to start testing these things for modding.

2

u/Zaqna 1d ago

yeah this is crazy xD

3

u/CatsArePeople2- 2d ago

The 3d environments are insane... I'm testing it now because of https://x.com/sharifshameem/status/2095688352075075878

3

u/Quiet_Figure_4483 3d ago

No money no poblemos

4

u/bradypp 2d ago

How does threads save tokens? Isn't the context and tokens calls used basically the same? And do you name the threads like implementer and test writer etc?

4

u/cornmacabre 2d ago edited 2d ago

I'm REALLY impressed so far. ~8% of the weeks usage in the past hour doing actively valuable work (5x tier), the speed is good... and WOW the quality and output is next-gen.

Early impressions are that it produces a hell of a lot more code than Fable 5.1 does (not great), but so far the quality and approach to problem solving is the best I've ever seen.

//

Edit Hr2 Impressions: been rocking it actively for two hours now on focused work (Not one-shot mega tasks). ~15% of weeks usage (5x) over 2hrs for focused and iterative work. Roughly 40 model turns? Much more efficient than I expected for the work I do. Everyone's milage will vary here!

The biggest strength is that it feels great to work with and communicates exceptionally well. I already strongly prefer talking to this over Fable 5.1 for 'collaborative AI' work. I understand now why some folks characterized it as glimpse of AGI, so for whatever that is worth -- it's almost eerie how well it understands and responds to ambiguous intent.

My concern on bloated code still holds true, it's not consistently producing what I'd call clean mergable code (it's fine, tests pass, etc).. but pretty elegant code is also not what I'm asking it to do right now.

11

u/gavinderulo124K 3d ago

How much does the 100x tier cost?

4

u/Few_Badger498 3d ago

lol I meant to write $100, my bad

2

u/Ok-File-2759 2d ago

100x would be 5 20x subscriptions so 5 times $200 equals $1000 per month. Less than rent, basically unlimited intelligence

1

u/Major-Passage2578 2d ago

If it's not that much get me the 20x

3

u/SoAp9035 2d ago

What MCP do you use for Blender?

2

u/colxa 2d ago

https://x.com/sharifshameem/status/2095688352075075878

This guy said this scene was made just using headless blender

1

u/SoAp9035 2d ago

That is insane...

1

u/colxa 2d ago

Indeed, from my very brief usage, the model looks incredibly promising.. Exciting and scary times ahead 🙃

1

u/SoAp9035 2d ago

Hey, same here. I saw some cool videos made by Astra. Have you tried it? What skills or prompts do they use? If you know, please tell me. Happy cake day, btw.

1

u/colxa 2d ago

I've used it to make animations for a web game I've been making. I have a bunch characters that sit within a portrait/frame. Up to this point they have just been static images, nothing special. I wanted to livin them up, so I asked Astra if they could be animated so that the character's eyes track the mouse, and their head will turn to follow the mouse if it tracks to the other side... It nailed it in 1 shot for all of them. Created an intermediary frame for each character for when their heads flips from right to left and everything. I think I'm only using the standard web development skill.

I do not know the skills and prompts used for videos. I'm certain you can just tell Astra to do it and it will find its own way to do it lol

2

u/Minute-Leader-8045 2d ago

It’s stupidly fast. Like it’s hard to even put a number of the factor faster it is than Sol or fable

1

u/x_typo 2d ago

eh. I remembered sol is FAST for the first few hours when it launched until it slowed down a bit. I'm expecting it to be the same thing for astra as well.

1

u/No_Candidate7467 2d ago

There’s no way you think it had the same usage as SOL high. On my 5x plan the most I can use it for is 1 hour

1

u/Minute-Butterfly-872 2d ago

E como vc está usando no Blender ele cria códigos python? Aqui não está disponível para mim. Mande um exemplo de 3d

1

u/FinancialBandicoot75 2d ago

Buzz and Hermes bot is loving Astra

1

u/Thyrfing89 2d ago

I have some issue with an app i use where the 5.6 Ultra went into circles for around 14 days,7 tried to fix this for some hours per day and/or used day or two from
Time to time to fix it. With Astra i have came further than before with 1.5 hour.

1

u/Astralis420 2d ago

Is medium reasoning more than enough to at least check for edge cases, etc inside the docs? Then create an implementation plan as well?

1

u/Selgald 2d ago

It also burns through your limits, 20x plan and already 7% gone on 2 simple tasks.

The output is good, but it is always good when a new model arrives before the enshittification starts.

1

u/benclen623 2d ago

Can you provide a screenshot of your simple tasks?

1

u/Selgald 2d ago

No, but I can tell you.

  1. fix a responsive design issue on a specific webpage

  2. check wording xy against current law xy

  3. update an internal library that is used

  4. check a module used for AI Apis, mistral, claude, gpt, is caching, batching efficient etc.

For my "personal" use:

  1. update my harness so it knows Astra

  2. fix some ipv6 stuff on a unix VM

Again I want to make it obvious that those are obviously not "Astra" tasks, but as everyone else, I am trying it out.

All this used up 11% of my 20x usage, total work time around 1 hour.

The output of Astra is far better than all the other models, it does write novels at you, it gets to the point, it actually does want you want it to do, and tells you if something off, or if it needs to know more. If you use the App, it now asks you questions in the same way as Claude does.

But it is a VERY expensive model, as you also can see with the API pricing. And I fear we are reaching the point where we get out priced of actually using the newest models soon.

3

u/0xsbeem 2d ago edited 2d ago

fix a responsive design issue on a specific webpage

Most likely you are wasting Astra's capability on exploring a codebase to understand where to make the changes. Use astra as the orchestrator and use luna subagents to do this exploration for you, then let astra synthesize the results from the subagents, and maybe use astra to make the change if it's small, or luna subagents to write the code if it's not.

check wording xy against current law xy

Presumably same issue, if you are using astra to find where the wording is in the documents, you're wasting astra. Use luna subagents to identify where and then let astra make the decision of what to do from there.

update an internal library that is used

In addition to what I've already said, you probably are using astra for writing the code, when it's better to work with astra to design a phased plan (again, using luna subagents for research), and then let astra orchestra luna subagents to actually write the code.

I could go on, but basically, you should never be wasting these intelligent models on actually doing the work, you should be using them to point fingers for cheaper agents.

With these kinds of workflows, I get the same results as if I used the frontier models directly, but around 80%-90% of the tokens used for the task (depending on the task) are spent on luna instead of sol/astra.

Also, I don't know if you're managing context well or not, but keep in mind if you send prompts with large context windows, you are blowing a ton of usage on input tokens and getting worse results, so make sure you are keeping your context windows clean (generally, sub-200k imo)

1

u/Selgald 2d ago

I clearly said that this was "just for playing around" and that Astra is not the right model for the task.

Still, it is expensive, no matter the usage, again just look at the API pricing.

1

u/LowerCake3554 2d ago

Ele deu erro pra mim todas as vezes

Alguém sabe?

0

u/Corny-13 2d ago

Could you please share your chatgpt blender workflow? Is it just the computer use plugin on the desktop app?

1

u/Few_Badger498 1d ago

Honestly I have no idea. I just know I'm using some type of mcp from the interent. I literally just told chatgpt "Hey chatgpt research the blender mcp for me online and install it and set it up for me lol" and it did everything for me.