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) no
3) Defaults: claude and codex
4) I've built my own custom system including web UI which helps me manage agents powered by claude and codex in both headless mode and running through an automated pipeline including bug reproduction, dev, code review, qa, etc... It's proving very useful, and keeps getting better as models improve. Opus 5.5 is phenomenal.
5) I tried OpenClaw but it didn't stick for me
Workflow-wise I just have a small GTD-ish setup with lists for inbox, todos etc and a couple of paragraphs describing how I want the coding process and troubleshooting processes to be handled.
The bulk of my instruction set is about communication style, since the defaults give me hives from the sticky tone and burnout from the sheer amount of words in the output. All of it works to keep answers short, to the point, sticking to technical details and absolutely no linguistic decoration or polite stuff. The most effective line I have in my Agents.md is to answer me like a Vulcan rather than a human.
I generally use open weight models (Kimi K3.1, Mistral Large 4, GLM-5.3, DeepSeek v4.1 Flash, Mimo v2.6 Pro is the current quiver) but I use closed frontiers enough to stay up to date.
2) I use OpenRouter if I have a specific need, audio transcription (MAI-Transcribe 2) being something I use often enough. Also using it just to test random models.
Not much local anymore except classifiers / decision models that I've played with.
3) Pi all the way.
4) I use Paseo to orchestrate agents, I have a couple plugins I've written for it that manages pipelines and such. I generally start a workflow with a simple skill and if it proves useful I like to make it deterministic if possible. Models be dumb sometimes.
6) No but I have some Paseo plugins for personal use, though it's very limited what I find useful. I also don't find that I want any claw type stuff at all.
I alternate a lot between models and harnesses, but mostly use them as adversarial to each other. (Ex: Astra Plans, Opus 5.5 executes, Sol revises, sonnet writes about it)
Have a server at home, so mosh into it and run Claude Code at the lowest level. Use Blink off the iPad.
For normal work though, I have a bunch of services set up to run Claude —-remote-control in every one of my projects, so I just use the Claude app on my phone and iPad.
Also maintain and run https://github.com/common-pattern/claudeflow as a service the bigger projects - it’s an orchestrator that reads GitHub issues and starts a Claude one-shot, automatically handling the routine stuff like CI, commits, PR landing flow etc.
The only "issue" I have is (due my local stack choice) is I can only have one project running at once, but I feel like I will find a solution to this soon enough.
2) Qwen3.8 Flash via Basalt (Local) + OpenRouter for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
3) I primarily use Pi with many custom extensions. Occasionally I will use Codex.
4) I use Pi Subagents and Herdr. With QFN being the worker, and Sol 6.1 xHigh for planning/review.
5) Hermes Agent via Telegram. I use this to follow-up, check status and work on projects while away from the house.
This is surprisingly effective. I thought it would consume massive tokens, it doesn’t.
I do mostly research and bug fixing for issues that float up from customer service and then root cause fixes.
We have many code bases with lots of cross dependency.
I'm just looking into setting up a separate GitHub user to let claude act as a contributor, and so much of the docs are about how to prevent your github auth info from your main account accidentally being used. That implies no sandboxing!!
Moving towards long-running, asynchronous delegation where I use a locally running instance of Fizzy kanban board to manage and track all work.
When I think of something I might want an agent to do, I create a card. When I want to delegate I assign to agent and move to To Do. I usually try batch things, then use a slash command to invoke a fizzy skill. I do this in a terminal and then close it and do other things.
Couple hours later I'll check the board and see what's in review column for me. Read comments, look over PRs, etc. Agent has broad access to specific project folders and repos.
In general feeling more like working with a colleague than chatting with a bot.