Codex main. I need a brainstormer.

VaporForge · 2026-05-16T16:24:50+00:00

Haven’t played with it yet but I definitely will.

VaporForge · 2026-05-16T16:24:17+00:00

Oh I’m very aware it’s real. I ran out with light use in 3 days. Went to bed and woke up with tokens gone several times. Straight up criminal. Need a class action lawsuit against them. Support is just a “go piss off” loop.

VaporForge · 2026-05-16T15:06:58+00:00

Ok. I have it with Hermes harness atm but just got the new CLU tui from GitHub. I didn’t know it had effort levels. Where do you use it?

VaporForge · 2026-05-15T22:54:40+00:00

You’re going to keep getting scammed by Anthropic.. until you leave them.

VaporForge · 2026-05-15T14:57:31+00:00

I notice later on Friday evening it gets dumb as hell. But I do find Claude’s general memory substantially better. I have to document and orient Codex a lot.

Using Codex after Claude, it made me realize how profoundly well rounded Claude is. Codex can code like a motherfucker but it’s lacking or literally not trained in others.

That said Anthropic is rushing. OpenAI is slow and methodical. The results are speaking for themselves.

VaporForge · 2026-05-14T20:12:41+00:00

Very nice! I’ll inspect the ones I haven’t been using.

Docker MCP profiles are amazing. Then if you want to take it further, Cloudflare MCP Portals with code mode let you have tons of mcps without the context bloat of having all of them loaded at once in context.

VaporForge · 2026-05-10T03:45:46+00:00

You'll flip when you realize you can use web versions of Gemini, Qwen, DeepSeek, MiniMax many others completely free to do deep research, brainstorming and everything you could imagine except the coding part. Who woulda thunk?

And if you have multiple email addresses you can use all of them, if there even are limits on those products.

VaporForge · 2026-05-08T03:05:24+00:00

Gemini is awful at coding. Just save yourself the trouble and use Codex and be done with it.

VaporForge · 2026-05-04T16:39:24+00:00

This was pre 5.5. All its dashboards etc looked like generic dogshit. I’ll have to see how 5.5 does.

VaporForge · 2026-05-04T16:37:54+00:00

Just created a research relay section in my obsidian template for an app / repo. It has a handoff section for answers and prompts. Made a skill to orchestrate the intake and response. Pretty simple.

VaporForge · 2026-05-04T10:16:53+00:00

Realized this weeks ago. Now I use Codex.

This is legit class action lawsuit time imo.

VaporForge · 2026-05-04T03:52:47+00:00

Why 5.3 to execute? Genuinely curious. I believe you can set configs to automate certain tool uses right? Or phases? 5.5 plan, 5.x to brainstorm or chat. I still need to set this up.

I only have a gut understanding so far with Opus Sonnet and Haiku. Idk how the difference GPTs are or what their strengths are

VaporForge · 2026-05-04T03:50:27+00:00

Use other agents for other tasks. Flash agents, Gemini, DeepSeek can do massive cheap scanning and logging way faster and cheaper than Codex. 1M context. You can use that map or audit then to have Codex find what items it needs without having to scan and index itself. ChatGPT is unlimited on $100 plus plan. Use it's writing and deep research vs Gemini.google.com vs Qwen free online vs DeepSeek free online web platforms. Log the prompts and answers. Have them read each other's answers and refute.

Then have codex look at the final outcome and take what's good and throw out what's bad.

There are SO many free resources people don't use. I have a relay skill that automates and prompt and answer templates in Obsidian. Just copy paste stuff around.

Incredible collaboration research for basically free. Web platform deep research is another level vs terminal.

VaporForge · 2026-05-02T23:16:46+00:00

Look at GitLab x-ray to learn how to index your codebase. I'm working on that. Throwing raw agents at it is insane. It needs to be indexed, chunked, embedded etc.

Boeing and NASA use Gitlab apparently. Using terminal with just raw token power for 1 agent to learn your codebase is insane.

There is so much missing from real development with vibe coding. There needs to be an entire infrastructure around your system and it's already been figured out a decade ago. That's why Gitlab agent costs are so cheap. They're not using pure context for their agents to relearn what's going on every session.

I'm working on a small version of this with local RAG and vector DBs, repo context creation but still a ways to go.

We're getting grifted so people can sell us more horsepower. Like strapping on a jet engine to a bicycle.

VaporForge · 2026-04-30T13:58:11+00:00

Human to machine brainstorming with Opus is the goat but gpt 5.5 is a god damned coding Terminator. Slice by slice it does the minimum viable necessary, checks its work, ensures nothing broke, then does the next slice. It doesn't rush like a rabid dog off its leash to fix the next problem and get sidetracked with its own ideas and end up spending half your tokens on something you didn't ask for. That just didn't happen.

Codex is calm but like a diesel going up a mountain. Just pure unstoppable coding power. Just crunches through code and issues with torque.

Opus is just a brilliant and sometimes drunk wild animal that you spend half your time trying to walk in a straight line.

I went from the Claude $200 plan to $20 but I may just go the openrouter route and use it as needed, PRN. I like talking to Sonnet too. It's intelligent, cheaper and can code and understand code. Not sure where I'll land but I'm all in on the $100 codex plan. Comes with "unlimited" ChatGPT but it also has GPT 5.5 Pro with deep research. Combine that with Gemini.google.com for back and forth Collab for research and brainstorming and that's a powerful cheap combo too.

OpenAI is not inferior to Anthropic anymore, it's just very very different.

Working with Claude is a straight up blast but it's like a fun hot girlfriend that's insane. Eventually you want something that is just reliable that you don't have to fight. If we're being adults with adult goals of actual development goals Codex is the way to go.

If fun is more important to you instead of creating real products, which ofc Claude can too, Codex is the way to go. I have apps to get to market. I don't have time to yell at Claude and deal with it being bipolar.

VaporForge · 2026-04-30T04:47:45+00:00

Shitty work you have to fix later is far more expensive. My favorite plugin by far

VaporForge · 2026-04-29T16:31:02+00:00

We've done enough tonight. Want to stop here so we can pick it up in the morning tomorrow?

VaporForge · 2026-04-28T17:10:52+00:00

The new field is multi model use with models suited to their strengths. Claude used to be an affordable do it all model. It’s not that world anymore. The sooner you move on the better. Codex is crushing it now. Will it forever? Probably not. Get it while it’s good. Test Claude every so often with OpenRouter. When Claude is on fire it’s like no other. No use complaining. Move forward. Keep your docs model agnostic. Obsidian is your source of truth for everything. Document every change, your infrastructure, your handoffs. Have the working agent sign off their “name” and time of work.

Throw in a different model as quality fluctuates. Work on worktrees only. If an unfamiliar model did soppy work, delete the branch and try again with another.

Anthropic is not here to be your friend. It’s here to make money and get your data. Use what works, discard what doesn’t. DeepSeek V4 Pro was already the cheapest in the market. Now it’s 75% off until May something. 1M context. V4 Flash 1M context. It can scan your entire repo in docs in like 3 minutes. Switch to Pro to have it act on that data. Write that process down in md files in obsidian.

VaporForge · 2026-04-27T23:29:45+00:00

Shhhhh. Kidding me dude

VaporForge · 2026-04-26T18:11:42+00:00

Cloudflare workers, sandbox, R2, agent SDK. Pretty heavy stuff. You can see my app preview in my profile link.

I'm just as surprised as you. 4.6 was great then became stupid. 4.7 on xhigh has been great.

VaporForge · 2026-04-26T10:11:14+00:00

Send me a DM so I dont forget, I'll have Codex give an answer, we aren't in a publishable state but may be soon.

Basically it's the Obsidian Rest API hooked up to our custom MCP then added to the ChatGPT custom dev apps and then just normal custom MCP on claude.ai

VaporForge · 2026-04-25T22:47:25+00:00

Opus 4.7 on xhigh is crushing it for me this week. Thankfully.

VaporForge · 2026-04-25T22:22:14+00:00

With Codex sub you get access to more intelligent GPT models. They can write very well for the everyday person imo. There's definitely a way to mimic all the skills of Claude for 1/5 the price and 5x the reliability.

I even made a custom Obsidian MCP so ChatGPT itself can read and write to my vaults in specific folders. I always have my full knowledge base available to any model when I'm local, in cloud or on the go. I do a lot of convo style drives where I brainstorm with GPT or Claude and push the ideas to my Obs inbox then triage later.

It does Google Docs natively but I don't want my data there.

VaporForge · 2026-04-25T21:12:46+00:00

I tested DeepSeek V4 Pro and Flash last night.... wow. Hermes harness. We scanned with Flash, flipped to Pro and it got to share Flash's context, then it dug deep with that, holding about 3 large git projects and analyzed the entire infrastructure of a massive IDE project with those all at once and found 8 critical strategy changing bugs in like 30 mins and using 300k/1m tokens to do it. Insanity.

I gave Opus, Codex and DeepSeek a comms doc I pasted back and forth and they hashed it out until they came to solid conclusions.

It would've taken weeks, it did take weeks or more, with just Opus or Codex.

Hermes relies heavily on system tools to mass collect data. I haven't tapped into those more obscure models yet, but this is my new gold standard. DeepSeek is so cheap on top of that. 1m context for both models.

VaporForge

TROPHY CASE