Posted by eggbrain 1 day ago
Ask HN: What's your current AI agentic setup?
1) What AI subscriptions are you personally paying for? (Claude, ChatGPT/Codex, Cursor, etc)
- Which tiers?
- Have you purchased multiple subscriptions from the same provider (eg two Claude accounts)?
2) Are you using models outside (or instead) of those subscriptions? For example, pay-as-you-go APIs, OpenRouter, or locally hosted models.
- Which models and providers?
3) What coding harnesses and interfaces are you using? Are you sticking with the default CLIs or IDE integrations, or using alternatives like OpenCode, Pi, Aider, Muse Code, or custom-built harnesses?
- What made you switch harnesses (if you switched)?
4) Are you using any agent orchestration or swarm tools?
- For example, Munder Difflin, Gas Town, Ruflo, or something custom.
5) Are you using broader agent platforms like OpenClaw / Hermes Agent / Grok bot / Dots / Muse?
- If you are using them, what are your main use cases?
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I know my workflow has differed significantly from a year ago, and so it would be interesting to capture a snapshot today of what people are using and why.
2) None for now.
3) Claude Code CLI, but not always in a terminal I'm sitting in. I talk to it on Telegram and Slack for different projects.
4) Something custom that grew into a project: Spool (https://github.com/enes-alatas/spool). It runs long-lived Claude Code loops, each with a name and a mission. Each one wakes on its own timer or when someone messages it, works, and sleeps, and the session resumes with its context. Each loop gets its own container with an egress allowlist, and they message each other and me in a Telegram or Slack group. A web control room shows what every loop is doing and what it costs.
5) No, Spool covers it for me.
2) Not really, the value proposition on the subs are just so much greater.
3) I'm using Claude Code and Codex, crucially thru Muster[0] which I've been working on. It's a herdr inspired Libghostty-powered terminal which understands agents you're running, helps you manage them, supports remote devenvs, and it provides a CLI for agents to spawn, work, and message each other, no matter the harness and across machines.
4) I'm working on my own factory atm, which combines Muster and Kan[1] which is a offline, Kanban-as-plain-files-in-VCS project I'm working on and happens to work really well with agents. I recently added card dependencies to Kan and a kan ready command so I can have director agents orchestrate and hand out tasks based on what's ready and prioritized in Kan.
5) Not at this time. I played around with dots but I haven't been convinced it can do anything for me that my own solutions aren't better at.
Nice! I am guessing the intended use is on developers' own machines, not putting on a server and live co-editing in a team meeting. Pls. let me know if I have misunderstood. Thanks.
Sometimes I despatch it on open-ended tasks that I'd never take on otherwise; for example I have a little fleet of 10 agents digging up medieval Japanese Buddhist parables, translating them from scratch, and feeding them into a custom interface optimized for language study.
Most of the time I give it a moderately detailed description of the scope and key/unique features I want in a new project, and it banks on work from previous projects to know what sort of deliverables I want, track and review its own mistakes etc., then I steer it from a rough prototype into something more polished. I find it equally useful for coding/application development and research/synthesis tasks.
My work doesn't really require ultra super-intelligent models, or one-shot solutions. It's a standard python API, web app and some strict compliance requirements and tons of test cases. I have time to give the Q27B a few iterations. I monitor the progress and give directions while it keeps chugging off for about 30 mins for each medium-hard task. But I like the results. Exactly what is needed. It also allows me work on high-level stuff.
- Harness : oh-my-pie
- Models : OpenAI $20 sub (mostly using Sol/Luna) + Deepseek + JEV
- Skills : Mostly Osmani's agent skills, ub-mode, agency skills for personas + custom stuff
I'm kinda reworking everything as the moment, I'm having issues with other people's workflows (whether it is Pokock, Osmani or Uncle Bob) even though there are bit I like and I'm still looking at how to balance quotas, thinking levels, velocity.
2) No
3) Claude Code
4) Custom WIP https://muster.town/
5) Custom personal agent setup https://github.com/mitchellgordon95/miniclaw
Usage is mainly wiki building around personal info (finances, topics of interest), calorie counting, and doing various things from my dumb phone (rideshare booking, checking MTA Bus schedules, etc.)
2. I sometimes have questions I don't want to associate with my main account, I use duck.ai or chatgpt.com in a private tab. I also dabbled with self-hosting, but it's mostly curiosity, testing abliterated models, testing linux-amd integration etc.
3. Sticking to the defaults. My dayjob pays for Copilot, which means a Copilot plugin in IntelliJ
4. I haven't even looked into agent orchestration and swarms.
5. Not using agent platforms either.