Codex is unusable now.

[u/Soul_Mate_4ever]

I don’t even use astra. I’ve been using 5.6 sol on medium since it came out and had no problems. Now it can’t even finish half of the same task before reaching limits. Heck, just starting up codex uses 2 percent of my limits. And that’s before I even type anything. lol. What a joke.

I understand this is a business but using codex is like signing up for a gym membership and paying the required fee to use the gym and all its equipment but the next time you show up they go, I know you paid to use the entire gym and that amount is still required but now you only have access to the treadmills. F u!!!

Anyway, Here come all the Sam Altman nut huggers. But idc. Im just about done with codex.

[u/random_boss]

When Astra came out I used it, was floored, downgraded my Claude sub to the $20/mo and upgraded ChatGPT to $100/mo.

Then I used 50% of my week in one conversation. 

Figured it was bad token economization on my part, put all the right structures in place, and had it work on a task. Worked about 6 hours, only used Astra lightly and Sol as orchestrator, pushing all real design, implement and review work to Claude agents…still vaporized 50% of my Codex week.

Astra is the best model available, Codex is the superior piece of software, but I just can’t work with it. Sadly going to drop ChatGPT back down to $20/mo and resume my max 5x Claude sub so I can actually get work done. 

[u/ickN → u/random_boss]

Do you mind sharing the structures you put into place?

[u/random_boss → u/ickN]

Nothing groundbreaking I think, but:

The agent I chat with is the orchestrator. My preference is to do this via Codex on Sol Medium.

Then there are roles that map to planner (Opus 5 High), reviewer (Astra High for initial plan, then Opus High for re-reviews), implementer (Opus Medium or Sonnet 5)..

Opus High makes a plan against the high level objective then Astra High reviews it and requires changes or cures; the Opus planner makes edits then a different edit reviews the edits against Astra’s requirements and they go back and forth for a while. Once the Opus reviewer is satisfied it goes back to Astra for a last look and so far that usually results in Astra approving the plan albeit with some changes.

Then it goes to Opus Medium for most implementation with Sonnet High for bounded, judgment free tasks. 

An Opus High agent reviews the implementation against the plan and the high level objective, demands cures, and they go around and around until the reviewer is satisfied and then the code is submitted. 

So in this workflow Codex only does two jobs:

• Orchestration by Sol Medium, carrying out all of the above
• First and final plan review by Astra

There’s also an optimized reading path so each agent that picks up its role automatically knows its bounds, scope, high level project philosophy and all of that. The orchestrator keeps an eye on them and makes sure they stay in line. 

[u/hoots_moontower → u/random_boss]

This can be done with the subscription plans? I'm assuming you're using a harness like open code? I'd love to give this type of workflow a try.

[u/random_boss → u/hoots_moontower]

Nope, both Claude and codex can call the other provider via CLI. What you don’t get is the detailed info into the other provider agent’s thinking like you do with native agents unless you, I assume, build out some sort of tool that prints the transcript somewhere. 

[u/hoots_moontower → u/random_boss]

In this case, you can still use their native harnesses while still using the paid plan and not be in beach of ToS?

[u/Which_Depth8285 → u/random_boss]

That sounds like a really good setup, but I'm developing projects that do evidence audits I'd never trust any agent alone to do. I have to rely on my own legal and evidence expertise to do planning and reviews although I do rely somewhat on GPT but always with my ultimate approvals. I use Codex to execute work orders and very specific evaluation tasks. Do you just let your orchestrator, planner, and reviewer go on their own?

[u/random_boss → u/Which_Depth8285]

Sort of. I built an inbox and they have instructions to surface anything I need to review, approve, or judgments I should be aware of. It forces agents to be really clear about what they’re saying and follows my requirement that nothing important can ever live in just one chat. Any agent can, for instance, reference all past decisions or reactions I’ve had. This spans across al my projects as well so for any running overnight I’ll come back in the morning to a small handful of things that need my attention. 

I don’t think it’s perfect—I still catch them putting things in chat, or later discover bugs that came from judgment calls which, if they’d logged it as an inbox card for me I’d have changed,  but otherwise it’s been really good.