Spending Too Much Money on a Coding Agent

I've been using a tool I developed (https://github.com/stravu/crystal) to run several sessions in parallel. Sometimes I will run the same prompt multiple times and pick the winner, or sometimes I'll be working on multiple features at once, reviewing and testing one while waiting on the others.

Basically, with the right tooling you can burn tokens incredibly fast while still receiving a ton of value from them.

I'm on $100 and i'm shocked how much usage i get out of Sonnet, while Opus feels like no usage at all. I barely even bother with Opus since most things i want to do just runout super quick.

Love the idea by the way! We do need new IDE features which are centered around switching between Git worktrees and managing multiple active agents per worktree.

Edit: oh, do you invoke normal CC within your tool to avoid this issue and then post-process?

Surprised that this works, but useful if true.

I use and abuse mine, running multiple agents, and I know that I'd spend the entire month of fees in a few days otherwise.

So it seems like a ploy to improve their product and capture the market, like usual with startups that hope for a winner-takes-all.

And then, like uber or airbnb, the bait and switch will raise the prices eventually.

I'm wondering when the hammer will fall.

But meanwhile, let's enjoy the free buffet.

`pathToClaudeCodeExecutable`!

But based on my costs, yours sounds much much higher :)

In their dreams.

Usage for Opus is my only "complaint", but i've used it so little i don't even know if it's that much better than Sonnet. As it is, even with more generous Opus limits i'd probably want a more advanced Claude Code behavior - where it uses Opus to plan and orchestrate, and Sonnet would do the grunt work for cheaper tokens. But i'm not aware of that as a feature atm.

Regardless, i'm quite pleased with Claude Code on $100 Max. If it was a bit smarter i might even upgrade to $200, but atm it's too dumb to give it more autonomy and that's what i'd need for $200. Opus might be good enough there, but $100 Opus limits are so low i've not even gotten enough experience with it to know if it's good enough for $200

AI is a large motivating factor in data center build outs, and data centers are projected to form an increasing portion of new energy usage. An individual query may not use much but the macro effect is quite serious, especially considering the climate crisis we are already failing to manage. It’s a bit like throwing plastic out your window on the highway and ignoring the garbage patch floating in the middle of the Pacific.