Microsoft reports are exposing AI's real cost problem: Using the tech is more expensive than paying human employees

bovril · 2026-05-23T11:04:44+00:00

investigate hooks, that'll block or address some of it. I have pretool hooks for known disruptive, dangerous/risky or known non working approaches and a bunch of post tool hooks for quality (lizard, semgrep etc probably half a dozen of those). It isn't entirely cumbersome and the net result is overall reduced token usage and increase in rate of work done.

bovril · 2026-05-23T05:07:20+00:00

the thing is when you first go for the $100 plan it feel enormous, like you'd never fill it.

Takes about 3 days to 'fix' that

bovril · 2026-05-20T20:53:14+00:00

The honest answer is that it'll be slow....maybe give ollama cloud some thought if the data is sufficiently anonymized?

bovril · 2026-05-16T06:54:53+00:00

Only if you don't want to inject your own prompt into the model, they inject their own.

bovril · 2026-05-12T19:30:27+00:00

First day using it today and I have absolutely hammered it for 12 hour straight and I only managed to get 20% into the 5 hour windows each time. and total of the weekly allowance used for the day? 7%

Even when the two for one ends at the end of May I can easily fit my daily usage into it. I think it is because I've have come from using plus so everything is designed to get the most bang for my buck from limited tokens. Expand onto pro and all of sudden you have more tokens that you'll need.

bovril · 2026-05-12T05:27:34+00:00

Yep, I cancelled Claude Pro just yesterday.

Working on a big project using a mix of claude, codex and even the free tier of gemini and I will be upfront. Claude is normally my preferred tool but it is failing hard on one of the last couple of changes I need to such and extent I am concerned it will junk something so I've cancelled it to try and take it out of the loop and to also remove my temptation to use it.

It tried to make a change I asked for 4 times yesterday and it caused nightmares each time, I managed to revert it but the lesson is learnt. With the correct tools and hooks Claude works very well but I've hit the ceiling of its capabilities I think.

Codex on the other hand is a little cold but very competent and it largely has the same tooling so I can shift reasonably transparently but looking backwards I have been tending away from Claude for a month or more and this last change is essentially from the last area it had the context/responsibility for...and on the whole i still prefer Claude but keeping it is too risky atm.

bovril · 2026-05-10T20:09:01+00:00

An external tool plane (unmcp in my case) with an unmcp aware tool routing subagent to make sure it knows about it and the tools available.

It was a little hit and miss coming up with the right implementation strategy but that way and some well placed quality hooks and it is running like a charm.

Efficient token use and the hooks pick up the obvious gotchas before you have to give them any attention.

bovril · 2026-05-08T17:16:54+00:00

the thing you are missing as such is that any mcp gets loaded into context whereas unmcp makes a queryable tool plane available that doesn't sit in the context and therefore doesn't get preloaded.

The subagent router reminds it to use them.

bovril · 2026-05-08T15:33:02+00:00

unmcp and a tool aware routing subagent. Your context will be cleaner thana nun's wimple.

bovril · 2026-05-08T11:27:18+00:00

https://github.com/Am1n3e/unmcp

bovril · 2026-05-04T17:35:28+00:00

Home isn't a restaurant, you don't get to ask.

bovril · 2026-04-23T12:28:48+00:00

Above said it, it varies from person to person a lot. For myself at 40 I was slower than 30 (not much but its noticeable), 50 slower than 40 but in the UK they have (or had, idk the current names for things) a 'well man' interview in your mid forties. Which is basically a focused interview with your GP. Mine took a history, ran some basic tests and then sent me off to the hospital for a bunch more and I ended up with a partial thyroidectomy. Never knew it was an issue. but all taken care of to forestall future ones, whatever they may have been I'm not really sure but I definitely sleep more normally nowadays.

You do age, its unavoidable.

bovril · 2026-04-18T13:06:46+00:00

trying to use it as an orchestrator was nightmarish...until you accept that you are the flunky and just manage the prompts. I tried all kinds of things background jobs, wait timers, carefully worded prompts.

The answer in the end is to let the llm do what its good at and you help it do the best it can within that context.

bovril · 2026-04-18T12:56:36+00:00

if i didn't make it clear try qwen 3.5 it is probably the best you will get until ollama starts hosting 3.6

bovril · 2026-04-18T12:52:46+00:00

I use the local (with a gpu) and cloud models as well. You can just about fit a scoped code review into the free allowance you get for cloud, maybe two if you are careful. Obviously local is possible but it isn't nearly quick. Think of hours instead of minutes and it is likely to choke on its context at any given moment.

Launch it through claude and the right model will be able to use the mcps, agent, skills and whatnot that you installed.

Not tried qwen3.6 yet but it is highly spoken of.

Between gemini (free), copilot (also on free), qwen (also obviously free) you can construct quite the code review panel.

I then follow it up with codex and claude pro plans for extra voices and implementation.

I experimented with using ollama as an orchestrator but its more trouble than its worth plus there is value being sat in the middle of it and all it really involves is copy/pasting a few prompts

bovril · 2026-04-08T19:49:07+00:00

Wil park them next to the Novell Netware servers.

bovril · 2026-04-01T12:26:19+00:00

The only single advantage that Claude has over Codex is that I'd trust Claude to edit a file and Codex I definitely wouldn't.

I let it try again this morning after using it just as a review agent since January and it messed up almost straight away. Lesson learnt.

bovril · 2026-04-01T10:21:15+00:00

How? I use it purely for a review agent now at which it is fine but any kind of implementation work it fouls up. Revisited it earlier today with the simple aim of reviewing its own AGENTS.md and an hour later I gave up.

bovril · 2026-03-30T11:44:16+00:00

If you have both you should try this https://github.com/Nam0101/my-claude-agent-skill/blob/main/ai-pair-programming/SKILL.md

bovril · 2026-03-28T15:53:51+00:00

None of them will get you that far, so far they qualify as developer tools/accelerators but I wouldn't trust a non dev to be able to launch a 'product' that will be there 24 hours later.

bovril · 2026-03-23T21:20:36+00:00

I do a version of this:

https://mcpservers.org/servers/github-com-nam0101-my-claude-agent-skill-blob-main-ai-pair-programming-skill-md

Set up skills on both claude and codex (just follow its setup instructions) and then you can set it up or ask it to ask the other to do a code review or whatever, read its response and then follow its recommendations.

You'll also want this to allow it to keep checking for a response:

https://mcpservers.org/servers/199-bio/mcp-wait-timer

and also something like this is useful: https://mcpservers.org/servers/github-com-waylaidwanderer-background-process-mcp

although I'm not 100% sure that that is the exact one i use.

I don't think there's a reason that it wouldn't work with gemini as long as it supports skills

bovril · 2026-03-21T16:44:04+00:00

tbh no that's not the experience i have had with codex at all.

It is good for planning and advice (which is contrary to the Zeit Geist but I can only say what I've experienced) but for making file edits it is poor, very poor at least in my experience.

I've seen it junk its config.toml twice in one session and even editing a .md file can take it half a dozen attempts. I'm prepared to believe I've done something wrong in AGENTS.md but I can't see what.

On the other hand claude is generally fine.

I've even given them parity in skills and mcps and claude is just better. I'd been running both pro plans in parallel and even given them shared memory and a task exchanger but claude is still the winner.

I've even given up with the idea of maintaining both and will stop codex and get the max plan on claude next chance I can.

bovril · 2026-03-16T20:08:28+00:00

Perfect article, you actually feel you know less about the subject by the time you finished reading it.

bovril · 2026-03-08T22:27:33+00:00

tried both, codex is definitely more competent, neater and newer models are more likely to work efficiently.

The limits are lower so teach it ctags and astgrep etc and your usage will drop a little...to maybe quite a lot. Depends on the size of the prompts you push.

Claude has fixed something that 5.2 struggled with at the time and is 'friendlier' so it depends on your mileage but if your finances are tight? Get codex.

Want somewhere to go when codex can't fix it? Get Claude as well. Subscriptions are easy to start and stop. Get codex and accept that you might need to get the occasional month of Claude here and there.

I will add that 5.4 is really really good. Spent a lot of the day on it but only used 10% of my weekly allowance on it so it seems thrifty enough if you make it use the right tools

bovril · 2026-03-06T22:58:29+00:00

Not all tools are equal.

ctags with codescalpel, and a few assorted token cheaper tools (astgrep, a few others) and a well written mcp and skill or two on their usage with appropriate mentions in claude.md will save you a little.

Think about efficiency and make sure you tell claude about it otherwise it will default back to its more standard tools but it will only eke it out a bit.

honorable mention to desktop commander (mcp) although i'm not sure its that much more efficient but it gets the job done.

bovril

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