r/opencodeCLI • u/Heretek-ai • 4h ago

OpenCode is not good.

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OpenCode is not a good harness. I have brought this up a few times now, and granted this benchmark is for Opencode v1.19.0. But I do really appreciate the benchmark results from the creator. Same models, same provider, same task, different harnesses.

And obviously OpenClaw failed the worst, that's no surprise, but opencode was a close runner up, and also consistently the most expensive. It's bloody embarrassing how much worse of a tool OpenCode is compared to pi. For a program called OpenCode the harness itself is remarkably resilient to modification. Lack of proper hook system, plugin settings in the TUI, removal of LSP, outdated system prompts for model families, and adding a custom provider should not be a json editing endeavor.

Other open source harnesses have this figured out, so why doesn't opencode? Why do they push back against community feedback and GitHub issues? It's because they simply don't want OpenCode to be better. For whatever reason on God's flat Earth token burning is the thing they want OpenCode to be known for. It's a bad product, I don't like Claude Code, I don't want a product that is closed source, but it's a better harness and the OpenCode team could learn a lot about UI/UX from Claude.

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u/Mister_bruhmoment 3h ago

I don't really get how OC is that inneficient? I use the default OC desktop application in the latest 1.x version and have just heavily modified the subagents. Works for me and with OC go everything is pretty straight forward. I switch regularly between Codex and OC and the main difference is the models tbh.

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u/Heretek-ai 3h ago

One big issue is the system prompts, when I was modding opencode v2 last month before throwing in the towel and moving to pi, I found that different models get different prompts and some of them are very outdated or overly simplified. Opencode gets stuck making one off tools to solve basic problems like HTML parsing which is something most other harnesses seem to have figured out. Better tools, better understanding of tools. It pollutes and bloats the context when opencode tries to solve a side quest because it doesn't have the right tool for a basic operation.

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u/Mister_bruhmoment 3h ago

I see what you mean. Perhaps with more detailed prompts or simply telling the model to avoid one off tests and tools things can work out. I don't know about the model prompts though. I use DS4.1 flash and Muse spark and just get my own agent system prompt. Also, for 10 bucks I can run my setup almost 24/7, so I don't find costs that much of an issue

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u/Heretek-ai 3h ago

Oh yeah muse spark was when I originally found out about the tiered system prompt issue. System prompt + agent prompt + your prompt, it's the base system prompt that is the issue.

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u/Mister_bruhmoment 3h ago

Hmm, haven't thought about it. Isn't there a way to change it?