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There's this great blog post by Joel Spolsky from 2000 [1], where he essentially argues that controlling your environment makes you happy. He writes about his s

There's this great blog post by Joel Spolsky from 2000 [1], where he essentially argues that controlling your environment makes you happy. He writes about his summer job in a bakery and how the dough mixers would be so unpredictable and how frustrating that was. I think AI agents are quite similar to a lot of folks, they change significantly with each major model update and even every day as the vendor tweaks the system prompts and settings, so you never feel "in control", it's more like pushing buttons on some blackbox and hoping the right stuff happens inside. Most people are unhappy about that as it takes away the mastery and craft aspect of software development and makes them managers of unpredictable AI tools. I certainly get this feeling even though I like AI in general, but having days where everything goes so well working with the agent and then days where nothing really seems to work and not knowing why is quite frustrating. 1: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/10/controlling-your-environment-makes-you-happy/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/10/controlling-your-e...

matheusmoreira 2mo ago
> and even every day as the vendor tweaks the system prompts I just patched Claude Code's system prompts, pinned the version and stopped upgrading without first dissecting and auditing the executable. Even discovered Anthropic can remotely inject strings into the system prompt via some "growth book" or something. Neutralized that too. Things got a lot better after I started doing this. It straight up fixed Opus 4.6, and Opus 4.8 got more consistent in my subjective experience. Sadly there's nothing I can do about Anthropic's server side "system reminders" whenever some prompt trips their classifiers or whatever. I'm in the process of switching to OpenAI and Codex. The open source harness is a breath of fresh air. We'll see how that goes.
- slopinthebag 2mo ago
  Crazy amount of effort when you can just use a different harness and a better and cheaper model.
  - matheusmoreira 2mo ago
    "Cheaper" compared to API prices, right? I've run the numbers and the frontier subscriptions are still the best option. 100% usage every week is a truly absurd amount of value. Unfortunately the subscriptions can't be used outside the official harnesses.
    - kelnos 2mo ago
      A month or so ago I asked Claude about using open-weight models through another provider (after describing my usage patterns), and, amusingly, it told me that I could probably save money ditching my Claude Max 5x sub and switching to something like Fireworks, using GLM 5.2, even if I'd be paying API rates. I still haven't gotten around to trying it, though, so I don't know what the reality is. And new open-weight models have been released since then that I'd want to evaluate...
    - slopinthebag 2mo ago
      Both API and subscription prices are cheaper with all other models and providers compared to Anthropic. GPT is also better than Claude from my personal experience. GLM 5.2 is equal and Kimi K3 is better. But I mostly use Deepseek and pay api prices.
    - zahlman 2mo ago
      Trying to force myself to find ways to extract full value out of such a subscription sounds very unpleasant.
      - matheusmoreira 2mo ago
        It's the literal software development gacha, habit forming, timed intermittent reward schedules and all. Making insane progress on my side projects though. If I have too much usage I'll simply find something for the AI to do. Guided router update. Router hardening. Laptop hardening. Penetration test my router now that I somehow got into the cyber program. Local models research. PC build research. Smartphone research. Financial investments research. Business research. Medical research. Laptop firmware reverse engineering. Old video game reverse engineering. Pick a random open source project and let's explore the code base. Analyze all of my ten thousand HN posts and tell me interesting facts. If I can't think of anything I default to picking a random git repository and launching a massive parallel code review session. That's guaranteed to kill any remaining usage in exchange for useful output. Then I can go enjoy my weekend guilt free. Unless they reset the usage.
- GZGavinZhao 2mo ago
  Maybe you should try using Pi [0] if you care a lot about owning your harness and making sure you're in control of what goes into your system prompt and context? [0]: https://pi.dev https://pi.dev
  - matheusmoreira 2mo ago
    Anthropic doesn't allow using subscriptions outside Claude Code.
    - AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
      > Anthropic doesn't allow using subscriptions outside Claude Code. Perhaps this[0] Pi documentation could help. 0 - https://pi.dev/docs/latest/models#anthropic-messages-compatibility https://pi.dev/docs/latest/models#anthropic-messages-compati...
      - raincole 2mo ago
        I don't think you got what the parent comment was saying.
zahlman 2mo ago
This is, I think, a big part of why I wouldn't want to remove myself from the loop.

matheusmoreira 2mo ago

> and even every day as the vendor tweaks the system prompts I just patched Claude Code's system prompts, pinned the version and stopped upgrading without first dissecting and auditing the executable. Even discovered Anthropic can remotely inject strings into the system prompt via some "growth book" or something. Neutralized that too. Things got a lot better after I started doing this. It straight up fixed Opus 4.6, and Opus 4.8 got more consistent in my subjective experience. Sadly there's nothing I can do about Anthropic's server side "system reminders" whenever some prompt trips their classifiers or whatever. I'm in the process of switching to OpenAI and Codex. The open source harness is a breath of fresh air. We'll see how that goes.

slopinthebag 2mo ago
Crazy amount of effort when you can just use a different harness and a better and cheaper model.
- matheusmoreira 2mo ago
  "Cheaper" compared to API prices, right? I've run the numbers and the frontier subscriptions are still the best option. 100% usage every week is a truly absurd amount of value. Unfortunately the subscriptions can't be used outside the official harnesses.
  - kelnos 2mo ago
    A month or so ago I asked Claude about using open-weight models through another provider (after describing my usage patterns), and, amusingly, it told me that I could probably save money ditching my Claude Max 5x sub and switching to something like Fireworks, using GLM 5.2, even if I'd be paying API rates. I still haven't gotten around to trying it, though, so I don't know what the reality is. And new open-weight models have been released since then that I'd want to evaluate...
  - slopinthebag 2mo ago
    Both API and subscription prices are cheaper with all other models and providers compared to Anthropic. GPT is also better than Claude from my personal experience. GLM 5.2 is equal and Kimi K3 is better. But I mostly use Deepseek and pay api prices.
  - zahlman 2mo ago
    Trying to force myself to find ways to extract full value out of such a subscription sounds very unpleasant.
    - matheusmoreira 2mo ago
      It's the literal software development gacha, habit forming, timed intermittent reward schedules and all. Making insane progress on my side projects though. If I have too much usage I'll simply find something for the AI to do. Guided router update. Router hardening. Laptop hardening. Penetration test my router now that I somehow got into the cyber program. Local models research. PC build research. Smartphone research. Financial investments research. Business research. Medical research. Laptop firmware reverse engineering. Old video game reverse engineering. Pick a random open source project and let's explore the code base. Analyze all of my ten thousand HN posts and tell me interesting facts. If I can't think of anything I default to picking a random git repository and launching a massive parallel code review session. That's guaranteed to kill any remaining usage in exchange for useful output. Then I can go enjoy my weekend guilt free. Unless they reset the usage.
GZGavinZhao 2mo ago
Maybe you should try using Pi [0] if you care a lot about owning your harness and making sure you're in control of what goes into your system prompt and context? [0]: https://pi.dev https://pi.dev
- matheusmoreira 2mo ago
  Anthropic doesn't allow using subscriptions outside Claude Code.
  - AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
    > Anthropic doesn't allow using subscriptions outside Claude Code. Perhaps this[0] Pi documentation could help. 0 - https://pi.dev/docs/latest/models#anthropic-messages-compatibility https://pi.dev/docs/latest/models#anthropic-messages-compati...
    - raincole 2mo ago
      I don't think you got what the parent comment was saying.

zahlman 2mo ago

This is, I think, a big part of why I wouldn't want to remove myself from the loop.