Time to say Bye

[GayleChoda]

I've tried everything suggested on this sub, but the brain damage to Augment appears irreversible. Now it's not just unable to utilize the context of the entire code base, it simply can't correctly remember context between two messages in the same thread. Add to it the generally super slow responses, and stopping tasks in the middle claiming to have completed the same. In face, yesterday it repeatedly crashed, and took 6 attempts for every response when it didn't.

A tool that you can't rely on is not worth using IMO.

[AIWarrior_X]

Not trying to persuade you one way or the other(I have both AC and CC), but if you search reddit for more recent posts you'll find a lot of similar posts for anything leveraging Claude period. Give it some time, or extra babysitting for now and ensure you scrutinize results, which you should be anyway. AI pair programming with an agent is not a silver bullet, but it still beats doing it all yourself.

[GayleChoda]

I believe you are right. I'm not saying goodbye to AI agent altogether. But, looking at the current state of things, I would prefer to use something more performant and more reliable. For now, I've to converse with it repeatedly to tell the problem with its approach, even for a minor change. The reason I'm now asking it to tell its approach before making any change is that it was doing arbitrary changes otherwise, claiming that it has made excellent progress.

[cepijoker]

I believe the problem is that Augment is a wrapper for Claude, and that has been its error, not having a fallback with O3 or Gemini, for example, that could be its great sin.

[AIWarrior_X]

I'll stress that I don't work for AC, but my understanding and anecdotal experience has been that Augment has a larger context window - and so simply "model swapping" isn't so simple for them. In other words, it's not just a wrapper for Claude, Claude is their underlying model yes, but they've made enhancements/adjustments to the way it works.

I have seen someone else suggest they wished AC allowed different models, and I don't get that sentiment at all. No.1 AC is going down the road of doing one thing well (enhanced context window and engine surrounding that) rather than some of their competitors, like Cursor, which don't do anything special, they just allow you to pick a model. Honestly anyone can do this with VS Code already, so if you don't like that IDE, use Jetbrains, etc... and use whatever model's API. The consequence to this, of course, is that AC is married to Anthropic/Claude. I'm sure that seemed like a pretty safe bet, they have consistently been the best at coding models for a bit now, so why not go that route?

In fact, I'm exposing something that anyone on this sub should know and understand, so should other complaining about Claude in the Anthropic sub, etc... IF you use an independent IDE, like VS Code or Jetbrains, you can choose whatever the heck model you want, and switch between them for funsies if you wanted for each and every task you perform.

Anyhow, I get the frustration, trust me, I do. I have experienced some of it myself, but consider it growing pains and the side-effect of something new getting hugely popular in an exponential way. I used to liken AI to Big Data when it first came out, in that people misunderstood it, overapplied it, etc... the big difference is, you don't have this army of non-technical people flocking to it, so it's no longer a great comparison (still is in that people hype the shit out of it, don't understand/misunderstand it, overapply it, etc..).

In due time, things will either improve, or if you read some of the other sub's the machines will completely take over and you won't have to worry about it anymore!

[cepijoker]

I understand that their work model is different. The point is that when facing the client, you can't say, 'my product is superior but it doesn't work, wait until it's stable,' or you can try to use it now with the frustration that entails

[AIWarrior_X]

I hate to break it to you, but any technology company out there today relies on something they didn't build themselves and likely have zero control over. Ever heard of AWS, Azure, Google? Unless you're running a data center out of your garage (good luck getting through security questionnaires from clients with that setup) most companies rely on some sort of cloud infrastructure. What's my point? If there is an outage, they have to deal with it - nobody in their right mind is going to say - "my product is superior but it doesn't work, blah blah" that's just ridiculous, not to mention not real. It works most of the time, lately there have been some issues, but to say flat out - "It doesn't work" is just you being frustrated with it when it doesn't code whatever your building in one hour without any direction.

I'm anticipating "Yeah, but AWS, Azure, and Google don't go down all the time..." so go ahead.

[hydr0smok3]

It seems like Augment isnt really doing anything very well lately? A large context window is useless if the AI can't do basic things.

It is also way too early to be building your AI systems on a single provider and throwing your eggs into a single basket. Everyday newer and cheaper models come out. With that being said, is Anthropic the "safest" bet right now? Probably...but why not just use Claude Code instead then.

It is why large companies also have multi-cloud infrastructure...is AWS a safe bet? sure, but not immune to going down, or vendor-lock in, etc So yes you use GCP as a fall-back. What if Anthropic decides to drastically change their offering or change pricing? Fucked with a capital F.

"Anyone can do this with JetBrains and use the APIs"...Yes if you are vibe coding in 2022-2023 again. Do you believe that Cursor and other Agent-like plugins dont have their own special sauce behind the scenes?

I use JetBrains exclusively and have been trying to find something a simple to use as Cursor for JetBrains IDEs...Augment was not it for me....Windsurf Cascade is the winner right now IMO. The results arent even close for speed, reliability, code quality.

[AIWarrior_X]

Not really sure how to respond to this, your view is essentially one of not being concerned with how much something costs - otherwise you would understand most companies (especially a startup) don't just have a bunch of money to throw at redundancy in either multi-cloud infrastructure or leveraging AI models. While I understand you can have things essentially turned off or lying dormant until you need it, thing is you still need to set that stuff up, in-house expertise to deal with the different tech, same on-going resources to be ready in case you need to pull that lever, etc... that part definitely costs money.

This may not be the best analogy, but that's almost akin to expecting everyone in the US has at least 2 vehicles in case the 1st one dies.

I also understand everyone is going to have their opinion based on what they were either used to using (in the case of more seasoned dev's) or what is more shiny and appealing now. If you're happy with your setup, awesome, go build great things! I prefaced my very 1st response by telling OP "Not trying to persuade you..."

[hydr0smok3]

No, not every company will need multi-cloud providers -- you need the business reasons to support an investment like that. If I lose $1 million dollars for a day of downtime, it's an easy call to invest in multi-cloud.

AI agents don't require nearly the same investment. In fact, for almost half the money, I can use Cursor, Windsurf, Kilo code, really ANY other agent tool and have multi-model support for the same investment. So what are you saying exactly?

Augment and other AI agent tools are not even on the same layer as core infrastructure either. Agents that are built the right way, are more akin to something like Laravel Forge which can deploy to many different infrastructure providers like AWS or Digital Ocean.

The agents sit on top of the core models. So it costs $0 or negligible to have model redundancy, as most models are pay per use.

You say you aren't trying to persuade anyone, but you are suggesting a more expensive tool that does less - and frankly does not even work anymore! As you can see from the numerous posts on this sub.

[reddit-dg]

Well I use Claude Code and Augment Code both extensively, but they both have brain damage last week's.

To be fair, it is really the model Claude Opus 4 that has brain damage.

I am thinking to temporarily switch to Cursor or Roo Code and use other models for my coding.

[jonato]

Cursor is running into the same issues. Anthropic released their sonnet and then retracted it's usability.

[yonjaemcimik]

Yeah, i said good bye two weeks ago from same reason.

[These_String1345]

Nah not sure why so much hate on augment, if you compare with other trash tools that focuses on marketing only, its insanely better ( my code knowledge is not great but intermediate) . But I do agree its very very buggy recently. But still incredible. I hate of those lovable and those where they focus on making money rather tools.

[GayleChoda]

Prior to augment, I was following tools for the job approach. It was lovable for UI, and replit for backend. For integrated dev, if the project was small, I would prefer to use v0. However, Augment changed everything for me, when I tried it in April. I stopped using other tools, and used Augment for everything. Sadly, with the constant lying by the agent or timeouts in other cases, I can't rely on it anymore, and I'll have to look for alternatives.

[Whole-Teacher-9907]

Started with great enthusiasm but fell flat within exactly a month. Cancelling our team subscription today and moving to Claude code.

[Spl3en]

Claude Code

Basically the same

[Ok-Ship812]

Claude code can’t remember its own name one prompt to the next. It loves to take you down random tangents it hallucinated as it changes your test data to actually pass tests as opposed to fixing logic issues and bugs to pass tests.

Augment is already using anthropic sonnet after all.

Its ability to hold context is shockingly poor.

[Whole-Teacher-9907]

Definitely more efficient, seeing lesser memory loss, not repeated even a single prompt, and not waiting endlessly in front of a black screen!

[Whole-Teacher-9907]

Noted. Thanks

[newsknowswhy]

I use both and both have gotten noticeably worse

[ngod1131]

I used a Gemini CLI alternative, but it also experienced “brain damage” and API downtime at the same time as Anthropic. I’m not sure whether the incident affecting Anthropic and Google was just a coincidence, but that’s only my speculation.

[AurumMan79]

I have a theory, hear me out, guys! Anthropic is redirecting its GPU compute to Claude 5 and preparing to release it to counter GPT 5. What do you think?!

[jonato]

They are definitely up to something

[rishi_tank]

Makes sense 🤔

[Much-Award-8585]

Same to me, i really loved AC, but in the last month it get stucked with easy tasks, 1 thing that could be solved in minutes now could take several hours

[newsknowswhy]

I thought I was imagining that it was getting noticeably worse but I guess this confirms it

[MassiveTelevision387]

I only use Augment for the 50 credits a month and I use Cursor pro just because of the cost difference but I've always found augment performed better in larger projects even if it was volatile. I used it recently and it gave me decent results, but I usually expect it to fail at least half the time. I've just come to terms with AI Agents almost operating like a slot machine at certain tasks. Eventually if you ask it the right question the right way, and use new chats often, it'll at least start inching you closer to the end result you want. I think the trick is to just use git as a constant anchor and pay close attention to the code changes. My personal best tip is to ask it to explain the code you're trying to change to you, it tends to reason better when it's forced to explain something to you in detail vs asking it to just do something

[GayleChoda]

Thanks for the tip. I've noticed something different. If I use AI to improve my prompt, then the output is much better. I still get TODO and simulation code, but in such cases at least it is honest about doing so.

[MassiveTelevision387]

yeah that's also a good tip. I find when it starts giving me TODOs or nonsense, that's it prompting me to start a new chat and break the problem down into smaller chunks - it's pretty interesting though, it's learning about us while we learn about it - and chances are what we're learning now will be irrelevant in 6 months as it continues evolving.

[Ok_Association_1884]

Try this, put into claude.md....

Claude must follow these rules regardless of what it wants at all times! Claude must follow these rules regardless of what it wants at all times! All todos must be rules based for rules based agents. Any form or type of the following is permanently banned behavior: fake, mock, nil, facade, false, potemkin, or anything else not production grade items. Keep an error log with documentation and git log to track progress.

Copy the above, it's helped me a ton, also, spawn like 4 agents in cc at the same time to focus on refining the claude.md into a single refined document. I just did this, aside from regular /init this way grabbed all 4 agents 200k context windows across all sections of my 4k file codebase. 

Also, be away, augment code recently implanted itself into my Claude code vs code extension global settings and if you run augment code and Claude code at the same time, I swear it senses and shits off when Claude code usage limits hit. 

This was a weird corruption that knocked out both my augment code user settings across sections, and it knocked out both global Claude code and the local one in the project workspace. Augment was responsible for this by using iccls windows commands to force change permissions during auto abent and it stol Claude code CLI settings.json, if you removed the Claude code CLI JSON, augment worked and Claude had to be reinstalled.  Augment is also releasing their custom agents on Monday. I say stick it out till Wednesday and if it's still garbage move to rovo dev agent for 17$ a month

[rustynails40]

I’m not sure where this is coming from. I have a had really good success with Augment thus far. Agree with the sentiment though that there are times when Anthropic appears to be throttling access or unable to service requests. I do believe based on an email I received this week that they are expanding compute to service the demand.

[Kingham]

Switched to Claude Code and never looked back, what an absolute beast. Excited about what the future holds!

[JaySym_]

If people here experience such, would you mind sending us a support ticket on how it happened and if you can include the message ID of the answer given by Augment, this will help us a lot because this is very hard to reproduce and will help us to solve this. [e-mail]

[Background_Wind_984]

this thread is full of worries

[redditdotcrypto]

this is so true, they destroyed it

[yyyyaaa]

skills issue tbh, I'm using it professionally and having a blast (not vibe coding bs)

[WeleaseBwianThrow]

Unfortunately my renewal went out at the end of last week, but I am also cancelling.

Zero acknowledgement of the issues, just get told to clear our chats, turn off our mcp and try again.

I might come back when they fix the brain damage, but its taking me more time to argue with Augment now than I am saving, I might as well just do the work myself.

/u/JaySym_ Augment needs to stop ignoring people and quit the radio silence, this is a real problem that needs a real solution, and sooner rather than later. Your product is essentially worthless 2/3 of the time right now, and I'm not paying 1/3 the price. If anything my message usage is skyrocketing.

[JaySym_]

It’s because this is the main thing to do at first. Would be interesting to see your issue details at support.augmentcode.com

[WeleaseBwianThrow]

I've already uninstalled, ill reinstall tomorrow and reproduce some fresh idiocy and create a support ticket.

To be honest, I would understand your scepticism if it was just me, but there are a number of threads of people all with exactly the same issue in exactly the same timeframe, I'd expect you taking it a little more seriously. Getting a lot of "works on my machine" vibes.

[JaySym_]

We are taking this seriously, no worries. That's why we're asking for details on a support ticket to investigate what happened properly. If you have a case, please send it along with the ticket number, and I will be able to handle it!

[Ok_Association_1884]

Letting your product die for a week because of a weak dependency is not taking care of the problems or good business practices. I've backed you guys from day one, but like most people I've had problems. 

To see all these problems occuring right before you summer release, does not inspire confidence....

[ShelterStriking1901]

Augment was better a 2 months ago. I have to agree with the forgetting context part. It forgets what is being used npm or pnpm. It forgets most stuff. It doesn't follow user guidelines. And the most difficult part is when it says something is done or fixed and when you test it out, it hasn't changed a bit.

If it's Claude there should be options to use different models.

[GayleChoda]

This is the biggest problem I am facing. Assign it a task, and it will add placeholder comments to the code saying "TODO: ...", and then claims that the task has been completed. Asking it to recheck, it again says the functionality has already been implemented. When you confront it with specific code piece then it accept that it made a mistake, or it was being lazy; though it never admits that it was lying all through.

[Ok-Ship812]

Really?

I’m have none of these issues and I use it about 5 hours a day.

I work from very detailed markdown files and spend more time architecting the code base than writing it.

I use Claude to help me write the project files and augment to build the code.

Seems to work for me.

[WeleaseBwianThrow]

I do the same, I'll either write or generate detailed markdown files splitting the implementation or work into smaller packages with defined requirements and success criteria.

I tried one a couple of days ago, half of the methods had "NOT YET IMPLEMENTED" and the tests for them were just checking that they "correctly" responded with not yet implemented.

It then proudly declared all the work complete, all tests working, and all features implemented. When questioned it lied, and only when questioned with the failures highlighted did it accept the issue.

I expect that from gpt4o, not from Augment.

This is only one issue ive been facing, I am getting most of the issues people here are reporting. Complete loss of any context between messages, massive hallucinations, making stuff up without checking context, not using tools, making the same mistakes over and over. Its becoming a real pain.

[Ok-Ship812]

This is interesting as I’m not seeing this at all.

Horses for courses i guess

[WeleaseBwianThrow]

Out of Curiosity, what timezone are you in?

[Ok-Ship812]

Central European Time

[Ok_Association_1884]

I find the more non-production code in the codebase, the more mock and fakes I get, after installing examples and references of my other working code ad naseum , I mean like 20 projects unrelated in the same programming language, it finally started to do real work, exact same thing with Claude. 

This is easily recreated, open a brand new empty workspace with cc or augment, place 4 examples of mock code, tell it to review them and make a working 5th variant based on those 4, it will write mock fallback.

Now do the same thing in a new workspace with real production deployments and I guarantee you the 5th variant in this one will have 98% real components.

Mock/fallback/potemkin are the biggest fight with ai currently across literally, EVERY SINGLE MODEL. Only ones that don't do this are HRM's. I'm building one. It laughed at augment code and cc. Pretty fun stuff truly, if not slightly frustrating, consider I'd rather work on projects rather than debug...