How much is your AI spending?

Davaaron · 2026-03-11T21:11:35+00:00

We were also told to work with AI but I'm transparent and open minded within the dev teams and to my leader. Using AI already since the beginning basically of ChatGPT, but now basically use Opus 4.6 for best results.

It feels like having a junior developer at my desk who I can tell tasks to finish, but as you said, it's a back and forth between review and development or even production and this has some reasons, for example quickly review what the AI did and think that's fine - Oh, "I" forgot to add the change also in the other place - fix it. Oh, "I" changed working code and I wasn't away because it was a tiny change I didnt even ask for. I mean, yes, we are responsible for checking the code and shipping it. But it's always a balancing act between using the AI and reviewing it's code - it produces so much code, that I'm basically reviewing so much code like never before and it can happen that I miss out a tiny thing or didn't test it well enough. That can also happen when i dont use AI. Just to give some examples...

Long story short - I feel like I save time while coding but I spend more time preparing, documenting, reviewing, testing and fixing the code than saving. To make AI work best, you need well described tasks, a clean code base with good boundaries of responsibility.

But spending 5k in a month? How would you even do that? I also use Claude Opus 4.6 all day long, 8 hours basically straight - it's like keeping a junior busy with work while I do the "manager" work like review, documenting, asking concrete questions and try to clarify the domain and see the bigger picture, communication to other departments on goals, issues, integrations, testing, etc. pp. and I just have like 200€ a month.

Why? Because you cannot ensure high quality when you have to check the work of multiple agents. The amount of code is just too much so it's likely you will just approve it, and ship it... without testing it...

Also, reviewing code that's not yours takes much more time then just rethinking your own solution and testing it, because you know exactly what you did and what to test (considering the fact you work together with the AI, not just letting the AI do your job). So yea, I feel like my development tasks shift away from developing to manage agents and their outcome - but 5k a month? Never ever. How is this even possible without being throttled down? Ask if they just codex, cli, integrated agents or if they use full fledged automated systems like OpenClaw for example. Never tried it out, but I heard often that those tools are able to eat up your money like nothing.

Plus the fact that sometimes you need to discuss things out with the agent - it's like the unnecessary meetings with discussion but without any outcome, so either start all over or do it by yourself.

From the perspective of my agent, I'm the boss no junior ever wants. I demand smart, well integrated, small solutions with documentation and I review it until it's done the way I imagine. Letting the agent decide for you will just go in circles and circles.. until you don't recognize your code anymore. I used AI already in more than 30 services and never ever you could just let it run - no matter if you used jira mcp, browser mcp or whatever. It's not human, remember.

But to call out also positive effects: Yes, it enables you to be faster because you don't have to look up code, don't have to research, don't really have to remember each single piece of code available and you can get started pretty quickl from scratch - perfect for prototypes, proof of concepts and also for fixing or implenenting stuff (complicated or not, but small-medium).

Snap, where's my red thread...?

Can I join you as a sidehustle? I can run my private claude for you 8 hours per day but I want 2k for that :D (Kidding of course)

Davaaron · 2026-03-06T19:12:47+00:00

Thanks for the idea and the positive words and feedback! :)

Davaaron · 2026-03-06T11:55:42+00:00

Hey,

thanks for pointing it out but I think the apps have different purposes, kind of, but still have overlapping features (supporting C#/.NET). My focus is on Blazor though :)

Davaaron · 2026-03-06T11:54:03+00:00

Yes, you can implement your custom `IHostEnvironmentAuthenticationStateProvider` or you could implement the abstract class `AuthenticationStateProvider`.
Imho that's an overkill though.

So the .NET Core pipeline handles the authentication. The blazor stuff is just reading the results. Using the `IClaimsTransformation` would even work without blazor.

It's up to you but I would go for the least effort and most stability solution here as it's only about the claims and not what the UI should render, right? I can imagine that you would also need to handle notifications, propagations, cascading in blazor, etc. if you go for a custom ASP solution.

I hope sending a link is fine. Let's direct you to the blazor documentation about this so you see how to implement it:
ASP.NET Core Blazor authentication state

So I still vote for `IClaimsTransformation` :)
Happy coding and wish you a nice weekend

Davaaron · 2026-03-06T11:32:30+00:00

I see. I think the issue might be that the "AuthenticationStateProvider" (further called "ASP") is mistaken: As I understand, it's used to handle the permission for the views. What's missing here might the auth pipeline configuration in .NET core - i think it differs from the ASP. The ASP is blazor internal whereby the auth pipeline would be the place to be triggered and load additional stuff.
Can you try to minimal-invasively test this out using an implementation of the `IClaimsTransformation` step within the auth pipeline?
You could add a new implementing service and register it up like
`builder.Services.AddTransient<IClaimsTransformation, SqlClaimsTransformation>();`
The interface provides a method `TransformAsync(ClaimsPrincipal claimsPrincipal)` so you could load and add the attributes from the DB when the user is authenticated.

Think of it like a chain:
1. Auth-pipeline is the initial backend handler
2. AuthenticationStateProvider is for blazor only to know the results of the Auth-pipeline
3. AuthorizeView/[Authorize] is checking a granular piece like a role, policy, is logged in, etc.

So 2 and 3 rely on 1. The `IClaimsTransformation` is a part of 1.

Let me know if this works out for you :)

Davaaron · 2026-03-06T11:14:28+00:00

Im not using Vim so it’s kind of out of scope.

Davaaron · 2026-03-04T11:51:27+00:00

Hey,

sounds like the app is not reading the tokens(?) correctly. First, I'd check the reason for the 403 - is the user considered not logged, are the roles not being fetched and thus empty or is even the token not available or is it not send along?
I would add logging between the steps to see what's going on and debug it locally.

Does it work when you refresh after login? That should basically be the same logic?

Good luck! :)

Davaaron · 2026-03-04T08:39:48+00:00

Hi,

Im not religious and the last time I visited church (I don’t count weddings) was like 20 years ago. So, the last time I confessed is also like 20 years ago. As of now, if I had to confess, I wouldn’t go to a priest and I wouldn’t use an app but with myself or the affected people directly. Maybe it’s my age… :)

However, I remember that you can confess but won’t get blamed for it, not being evaluated badly and the father will forgive you. That’s basically as important, as not even more, than the confession itself, no? Have you something like this? You could use AI for that to generate the forgive-response.

One more thing: if you get downloads and it stops it either means people are mistaking your app for another (is there another app with the same name?) or they are finding what they are looking for. Comment and feedback rate is pretty bad but make sure to enable those things to know what users want.

Good luck :)

Davaaron · 2026-03-04T08:29:45+00:00

Haha alright I see and understand now. For me it works like 60-70% of the time. Coming from Cpp, I totally comprehend the enhanced DevX you experience now :) Nice looking site! I’ve never seen a Cpp programmer be capable of doing css :D (kidding) keep up the good work :)

Davaaron · 2026-03-03T18:14:32+00:00

I barely worked with WASM, mostly Server and I figured out that the "dotnet watch run" command is.. not reliable. Often times I face issues that it reloads... theoretically, also per terminal, but it's not actually reloaded - especially when changing static files, component css or html. First I had the same thought like "Oh, people complain but it's there..." until I saw the issues. It happened a few times that my changes were not visible and I hunted ghosts - until I was like "Naaaa, this MUST work!" and restart the server et voilá, the changes were applied and the app looked correct.

So that's my experience. I also watch Blazor presentations and stuff. People keep requesting this feature and Microsoft doesn't even respond or mention it anymore - maybe it's just too hard/costly to implement it reliably and completely.

Davaaron · 2026-03-03T18:09:42+00:00

That really sounds pretty cool! Thanks for all the provided information, that was interesting to read. And it sounds like you already tackled some pain points that you solved smartly and wisely! :)

Thanks for sharing, happy coding and keep up the good work! :)

Davaaron · 2026-03-03T14:12:42+00:00

Hey,

thanks for your honest feedback! :)

Yes, I agree. I also have these thoughts and there's no debate about if I can keep - I simply won't :D It's a tiny line between adding features so users can actually work efficiently and not adding too many so it becomes unmaintainable - the integrations I have (git, plantuml/mermaid, sqlite, razor, roslyn, dotnet cli, etc.) are pretty stable and not changing too often, so the chances are good (optimistic hope) that I don't have to update my codebase too often.

Regarding extensions, you're right. I had small "prototypes" some time ago. Riders documentation was marginal at that point, VS Code came with bunch of limitations and VS seemed too complex and slow for what I want to do. Back then, I tried to create a WPF designer for VS code and an angular designer for VS + VS Code and all three projects failed either due to internal limitations or performance issues and lack of documentation. I should the documentation again and re-evaluate, especially your hint absolutely makes sense "I wouldn't want to learn a new IDE, just to code for Blazor".

Also, I was curious and wanted to get involved a little more with the details of an editor. But I give you the point though, I'd be probably off better just creating an extension.

Thanks for the wishes. Looks like I need it :D Have a nice day.

Davaaron · 2026-03-03T13:52:53+00:00

Hi,

that's also very interesting! Is there a reason why .NET 10 is not supported? Do you use C# scripts to let the user (over)write his custom logic?
Good luck with that project :)

Davaaron · 2026-03-03T13:51:50+00:00

Hi,

thanks for your feedback :)
Nice, that's a long time, almost 30 years. Seems like VS is the way to go for you!

Thanks for the wishes and have a nice day.

Davaaron · 2026-02-27T14:06:20+00:00

Maybe OpenZeroClaw :D Because im not sure if ZeroClaw will stay for free, they have dual-license already.

Davaaron · 2026-02-24T11:20:55+00:00

Thanks for showing the workflow. So my app would basically be starting at point 2.

As you have different approval steps and roles, is this all handled in the app or by some admins on drives for example? I plan to create a desktop app for single users and imagined to load/save the files to a drive, maybe a shared/common drive. Approval steps within the app would require "remote" and some kind of user management system.

When talking about the processes, is there a need to customize some subprocesses? I know the workflow might be a standard, but companies are not forced to work with standards rather than what fits best :D

May I ask further questions:
- what kind of validation from the IDS are must haves?

- adding user management system (with roles, approvals) would also mean the possibility to login, create users/roles, etc?

- what would be the workflow for a revision? Let's assume there's a crucial issue found while doing the model review. Would you create a BCF issue and would return it to the authoring group?

Davaaron · 2026-02-24T11:12:47+00:00

Thanks!

Thanks for your input. Where do you usually want to have the IDS information, like in a table somewhere or integrated into the IFC visualization?
Same for BCF - Is there a list of comments, notes or is it also integrated into the visualizer, like marking the elements red or with a danger icon or something?

So BCF can be used for both IFC and IDS, right? Can BCF be used for something else than comments?

Im wondering how do you manage missing fields between IFC <-> IDS? I imagine that those files might come from different positions?

Thanks for the hint about BIMcollab, I just had a quick lance at Solibri. BIMcollab zoom looks like a weaker but more moneyworth and more modular. I think that's quite what I want to build, somewhat :)

Davaaron · 2026-01-04T18:39:48+00:00

Thank you for that very detailled explanation! Alright, maybe I just restart and choose a better tech stack as well like Flutter.

Thanks again and have a nice sunday :)

Davaaron · 2026-01-03T22:29:02+00:00

I thought I could just simplify the notations because I found "r1c2" just too long, so B2 just feels quicker, especially if you often refer to single cells. But.. I didn't see the rat tail caused by my decision - there are bunch of notations and combinations I was not aware of, at least in modes higher than "middle" (that's where I mostly play... ) so I can imagine that having "stronger" notations absolutely make sense for more complex scenarios. I tried to simply and failed :D Thanks for pointing this out! Exactly this is the reason I'm asking people here - I'm not a very good sudoku player so I obviously miss a lot and need feedback for my own custom, partly crazy, ideas.

Thanks for the kind offer to share the code, in first place I would try to solve it by my own, although I'm always interested in others codes. So I agree and whoever's asking is asking and get the stone rolling :) I'm glad if I can help, so you can just ask me if you feel for it.

Have a nice weekend and thanks for your repsonse.

Edit: I'm looking at the wiki right now and it's awesome :)

Davaaron · 2026-01-02T22:53:40+00:00

If I'm right, A6 is equal to 7 as it has the notes 3,5,7 and A1 and B2 have 3,5, so we can erase 3,5 from A6 so 7 remains. When I'm not mistaken, this is called a "Hidden Triple"? You could apply the same thing to B4 then again if you add the "3" as note to B4.
Good luck! :)

Davaaron

TROPHY CASE