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.
I used Open Code, but they stopped supporting Claude, so I was searching for something different (I had a free 20x Max plan as an open source maintainer). First used Claude Code and then found out about Agent-Shell. Now I'm using the Claude Pro plan.
2) I have a "live Zoom call audio transcription" setup that uses Silero VAD, Qwen3-ASR-1.7B, Qwen3-4B-Instruct, and pyannote speaker-diarization-community-1.
3) Claude Code in the Desktop UI using remote control environments.
4) Custom orchestrator for having Codex review Claude or vice-versa: https://github.com/navels/neal
5) I have built over time a personal assistant using Claude remote control running on a mac mini, this is likely similar to Dots?
I really want to use 6.1 Terra, but the way copilot is set up in visual studio proper, they don't handle reasoning models correctly (or maybe my install is screwed up). Eventually, I will dust off that old winforms project and get my custom harness working with the latest responses API contract.
I prefer (pre) paying for tokens. You can offer me all the proof you want but I'll still never believe that those subsidized tokens are always the same as the ones I get through the API.
https://gist.github.com/ontouchstart/b6a08b068cf863f0523bbd8...
Harness: Primarily Hermes Agent across desktop, terminal, and phone (via Telegram). I have also tried OMP but find it a bit clunky to use. Hermes tui + tmux are my favourite tools and Hermes works well with local models.
Orchestration: I haven’t seriously worked with it yet, but starting to use herdr with Hermes. That is as much “software factory” I get.
I tried setting up a script so Claude could automatically call agy, but it kept hitting timeouts, and letting Claude control that tends to burn my usage too quickly anyway (and if I'm not copy-pasting into different terminals, where's my value add in all this?).
Argon hallucinates, so I rarely use it for impl, but I've actually had better results with it than Opus for SwiftUI and AppKit work.
I try not to run more than three sessions at once, or I get anxiety about having to keep all the session caches fresh and end up typing silly things into some of them every 30-45 min so they don't expire or auto-compact.
2) I use models on open router occasionally, primarily GLM and Deepseek models. I’ve experimented with Qwen locally but the models that run on my hardware are too dumb for extended use cases and too slow for quick questions.
3) Personal use: Primarily Zed. I use employer paid Claude Code in the day job but it eats tokens at a rate I’m not willing to pay for for personal use. I’ve tried OpenCode but their security track record is uninspiring and I’m way more defensive about my personal hardware than my employer is about their hardware fleet.
4) No
5) No
I'm sticking with Default CLI/Desktop apps + built my own to combine them for my specific workflows. Used previously OpenClaw and Hermes but it seems to fall apart when you give it any real work. Ending up giving up because I just don't have to tinker / fine-tune it.
I will say, I enjoy Muse a lot for some reason for personal things. I don't overshare anything I wouldn't mind saying in public.
Within the last month, I basically use Claude Design exclusively for front end work and Codex for backend work. Codex just works but sucks as design. Claude is great at design (with enough references) but can't seem to actually get anything to completion.
I've had the same experience as you with Claude, and I have to choose a single subscription, so I'm on Codex. I definitely wish I had access to Opus 5.5 right now.
I had the free Claude Max for Open Source plan, but haven't paid for it again now that it lapsed. I haven't used Claude for ages anyway, the way it talks really annoys the hell out of me, Codex App & models are far nicer IME.
2) No
3) I'm happy with the Codex/ChatGPT desktop app, works super well. Also use the Codex VSCode plugin a bit, and started recently experimenting with herdr. Used to use Cursor but I switched when Musk bought it. Very very occasionally I use some other thing like opencode or pi for targeted situations, or Codex in the CLI
4) No
5) No
I don't have the bizarre need to have dozens of agents going at once in my work or personal time, already feel flat out at work just using Codex w/ worktrees for a few concurrent projects at a time. I feel more productive than ever, I don't see how I could add more without being overwhelmed