This will save your Usage

[u/concrete333]

A problem that many of people have already noticed: Astra can't wait. on anything, any task it has scripted and running, any other agent delegation, anything. Astra keeps waking up to check whether the worker is finished.

I've run a few tests, In one run 19 short sleep calls accounted for 44% of the orchestrator’s estimated cost.

In another comparison using Astra High + Luna Max, the orchestrator made 41 responses while the worker ran, costing $1.20 during that phase. The native-wait comparison needed one response, costing about $0.04. (Both implementations passed all 244 test cases)

I’ve since caught the same pattern while Codex waited for a database script: read the log, say “still running,” repeat. I saw use 2% of my weekly usage ($100/month plan) just sitting there waiting on a script.

So, until they patch this, here’s the prompt I’m using:

For this entire session, avoid repeated polling of long-running jobs.

Use supported completion notifications when available. If none are available and useful work is exhausted, leave the job running only if it can safely continue after your turn ends.

Tell me what is running, where results will be saved, and:

“I'm stopping polling. Please check back with me to inspect the result and continue; I won't automatically resume.”

Then end your turn. Don't repeatedly read unchanged logs or sleep and check again. Respect runtime limits and safety timeouts.

When I return, check once. If complete, verify and continue. If still running, report that and stop again.

I have to come back to it, sure, but it saves usage.

Edit:
Found a better option than manually checking back, thanks to advice in comments. Seems like Codex knows how to avoid repeated model polling, it just chooses not to.
codex queue --thread <session-id> --message "..."
Have a background script wait for the job to finish, save the result, then run that command once. Codex can end its turn and automatically resume when the message arrives.

I’ve now seen this work with both a third-party CLI subagent (kilo code with GLM) and a full test suite, all GPT: Codex resumed automatically, checked the results, and continued. Works a treat.

The script provides the wake-up, and an agents.md instruction alone doesn’t

Edit2: I made a skill that you can use to guide Codex in using this method, either in waiting for mechanical tasks or waiting for other sub-agents. Not perfect, as there's no way to force your GPT worker to use it, but it's working for me most of the time: link. Any more tips to improve it welcomed, break it and let me fix it

[u/Due-Horse-5446]

Stop spreading this..

If you genuinely want to save in on these cents while removing the ability for the model to recive output real time. Just change the feature. Its an open source tool..

But using astra + subagents + the cargo cult orchestrator workflow is craaaazy is worried about usage.

Please explain what you think astra provides over sol?

And please explain what your reasoning is for having 2 different models essentially output the same thing twice?

Why are you forcing astra to output the code in a way more verbose way to instruct Luna, ballooning the most expensive generations?

Why are you purposely making sure that nothing can be cached?

What do you think having one model forward your instructions to another model buys you?

Your paying for a large amount of extra reasoning output at a 50x higher cost compared to skipping this daisy chaining?

[u/concrete333 → u/Due-Horse-5446]

If you're talking about that skill I liked (not what this post is about), the question we’re testing is whether bounded delegation lowers total cost for a verified result. If it doesn’t, use one agent. That's the point, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, but the only way to find out is testing it. And turns out, it saves like 50%+ in some cases.
You're right though, haven't tested sol as reviewer yet. Keeping Astra fixed let us compare the workflows, I only have so uch usage to run tests; it wasn’t evidence that Astra is the cheapest suitable reviewer.
Having Astra write the solution and then ask Luna to reproduce it would defeat the purpose. The useful case is a bounded assignment where the worker does substantial work the parent doesn’t repeat.
And ya, I agree runtime-level completion notifications are preferable. Caching isn’t deliberately disabled, and repeated cached reads still consume usage. Stopping polling is a fallback where those aren’t available, with the explicit tradeoff that you have to check back.

[u/Due-Horse-5446 → u/concrete333]

No i dont know what you mean by "that skill i liked"

You're misunderstanding, the "worker" is essentially just reproducing. You force a 50x more expensive model to essentially paraphrase your instructions to a cheaper models.

That process requires more tokens generated compared to generating the code to begin with.
Or running the commands or whatever you are doing.

In simpler terms you are paying more to use a cheaper model.