radio879

This is not new, but what is new is GPT 5.6, Terra and Luna, are the models right below Sol, are now included in the free daily tokens thing they do. Terra is better than GPT 5.5. I've been using it in Codex.

I have a couple things that run daily, experiments where it grabs stuff and updates a site in a loop. You can do a lot of free stuff with 2.5 million tokens... and its not going to be low quality. So I just wanted to share this in case people didn't know about some free stuff. (okay its not "free" when you have to agree to share the in/out for training.. so just don't send them anything you don't want out in the world i guess)

i put together this, for myself so i can try to track what coding agents are doing, I add agents to it or topics (like caching, or sandboxing, file editing methods, etc) just to try and find anything novel or good, since I am/was considering making a new harness but using all the best things from any of those. I still cannot find my perfect coding agent, every one of them has some problem or just not totally what it could be.

What I do is just point agents to a folder, have it loop around a few times on a repo, fact checks at the end, but people sometimes think the software/harness around the AI model doesn't do much which is TOTALLY wrong, its probably AS important or more.. file editing methods available matter a lot, context compaction methods... matter, caching matters. I am still fantasizing about a "best of N" coding agent, that tries to take all the best stuff from all of them.

I have an idea of a coding agent that puts a lot more effort into using more than one model at the same time. Sooo much can be done with that idea.. and no one is apparently doing it yet that I can find. I just am not sure I want to put that much time into a new coding agent project. I wonder how autonomous it could be - have weekly or daily scans of the current coding agent landscape and automatic scanning of coding agent/ai code related subreddits/hacker news, analyze it to figure out what the current problems are, complaints about existing coding agents, desires --> prioritized list of possible features/fixes ---> ai agents code and make releases

https://agents.buttonscli.com

I don't remember where I read it, pretty sure it was in a book - my dad taught me science stuff starting young (like late 80s, early 90s) , I remember it and somehow I got really into altered states, psychedelics, etc so that really just stuck in my mind somehow (even though I think I read about that, before ever trying any psychedelics)

I have a very vivid dream life myself, and I have had 'out of body' experiences starting at age 6, so maybe I read it sometime after having some of those weird experiences and that's possibly why I remember reading it.

Right now I think GPT 5.4 beats Opus 4.6 and everything else. I get a lot from just the $10 Github Copilot, somehow it hasn't run out yet and i've been going at it insane everyday

Also, we can do thought experiments, simulations in our heads, that often are as good as doing them for real - it has limitations and isn't perfect though. But it does work often. Einstein used to purposely dose off in a weird position so that something hit his leg or something like that to slightly nudge him half awake so he could remember his half-dreaming state - which is where he discovered some things

... also, instead of just using all this stuff out there, like all the OpenClaw stuff, memory systems, what I am doing so that I understand it is just create my own from scratch I have not even read about how that one works, I spin up 10x copilot -p "idea", in the new automate mode they just added, in Docker container, 5x gemini cli in pro 3.1 then 5x flash 3.1, gpt 5.4 in there somewhere along with 5.3 codex, o3, 04-mini (crappy agentic models, BUT, that is okay because often that means they have some more intelligence that the more agentic models lack) scan those with my brain then run all the passing ones into a Best Of N scenario to compile a best/better etc. I have a whole system that works well - certain things will cause all these models to respond differntly, while other things will get them to mostly respond the same - which means something useful.

With all of the talk about "LLMs are non deterministic" I am trying to build my own tool (at this exact moment, since I seem to have gotten really good at this) which does some of what these OpenClaw/Clawdbots do for people, but instead of having these LLMs/agents handle everything I am trying to do as much of it as pure deterministic code as possible. I test things once, like daily automations, and they will repeat that way the next scheduled date/time. Also, anytime AI models are used, at first I am approving/analyzing a docker/podman/microVM container to make sure it is only EXACTLY what it needs for a job, and then that is saved for future. I approve it once, and then it is there for future use.

Also I happen to know a few useful things, from a year + of working with all of these models, tools, daily for usually at least 8..12... 15 hours a day (I cannot stop, I love it, and I am good at it). I just noticed someone finally posted what I figured out a year ago - when you do need the help of a LLM, and you need it/want it to be as safe and as deterministic as it can be - Use the biggest, best, smartest models for the "brains" but for ALL the agentic stuff, the tool use, the MCP servers, etc, use a smaller model. Current best models for that - MinimaxM2.5, Gemini 3.1 Flash (use pro for planning, fixing, problem solving, all the difficult stuff, but definitely use the smaller Flash for the agentic tool use) Its weird that I have known this for so long and it has barely caught on yet.. I did have some AI guides that went viral on HN months back wuu73. org/aiguide or /aicp (free tool, well loved) I should write more about all this stuff i've figured out so I am not dumping paragraphs on so many posts over and over like this.. if my tool ends up useful I put it on my site somewhere in the AI tools sections if you want to put your email in the RSS thing, I will try to put anything useful on there/update RSS

Just wanted to share that this actually does work with Claude Code, and I can use Github Copilot's Opus models in CC without burning up all of the premium requests.. they figured out how to fix that. Copilot is a great deal for how much you get for $10

Right now Google Antigravity has free Claude Opus 4.5, with pretty decent allowances.

I also use Github Copilot which is just $10/mo. I have to use the official copilot though, if I try to 'hack it' to work in Claude Code it burns thru all the credits too fast.

I am having a LOT of great luck using Minimax M2 in Claude Code, its very cheap, and it works so good.. its close to Sonnet in Claude Code. I use this tool called cc-switch to swap out different models for Claude Code.

Lately, I’ve been using Claude Code skills/plugins.

One is called Superpowers (you should be able to find it by typing “claude code superpowers github”), and there are many other skills installed for all sorts of things. Gotta give props to whoever came up with the skills idea at Anthropic. It’s a smart way of handling context — instead of dumping pages of helper text into the prompt (for example, how to properly build a frontend website), it just provides some metadata and lets the agent decide whether it needs to load more.

I highly recommend spending time finding and installing lots of these skill plugins. They can make even the cheapest small AI models work way better.

I’ve been using the Superpowers plan mode: it creates a detailed plan first, then there’s an execute mode (and a few others I’m forgetting). I can give it a long, hard task — like converting a large app to another language - and if I run plan first and then execute, I can just let it run for hours and come back to something that’s basically done: fully tested, following best practices, with most bugs fixed.

There are some skills for frontend development, and now anytime I make a website, its crazy amazing looking and has all the stuff I usually forget.

I made this for my sister who has been curious about AI and coding (she is not a programmer). Its because I didn't want to sit and download each program individually, install each extension, Git, Node, ... also random people at work, lots of people get curious after me telling them how much fun it is.

I could not find any similar thing out there..

Includes at least two totally free and excellent free tier's of AI coding tools/APIs that can be used in the installed VS Code (auto-installs a couple AI coding extensions). Includes links to some other information I wrote about how to keep costs low or zero.. specifically for AI to help code (something that was trending on HN last month).

Its useful for when you are having random conversations about the topic and people are curious and want to maybe experiment... but have no idea how to start or what to do. Some people will loose interest when there are tons of steps or friction.

I could improve this a lot if anyone actually ends up using it besides myself, better docs and maybe a guide or example(s) step by step how to make/code something cool (or, links to some guides, videos, blogs/sites - I enjoy getting people into cool stuff like programming! If you can show someone how much cool things they can do before the brain boredom hits, they'll get some dopamine and maybe come back to it.

Interested in any feedback negative or positive, i'm probably missing a few things that should be included... I don't want to ever add anything spammy/scammy, things that you spend time to learn then they manipulate you into paying, no evil things etc.. no "gotchas" marketing "trickery" If I were to remake it i'd do it different: web/JS version where the checkboxes are online, and it creates a more custom script. More options and operating systems but with 2 or 3 good simple defaults to pick from.

The free AI models are Qwen3 Coder, Gemini 2.5 (probably 3 soon) Pro.. and there are usually one or two more that are built into the VS Code extensions Cline, Kilo Code. GLM 4.6 is $9 for 3 months. Github Copilot is an excellent value for all the Claude 4.5 credits they give you for $10 (maybe its temporary but I can go with the agent for hours, barely using 2%!)

--- Some people hate the phrase "vibe coding" but my own mother asked me if I had heard of it. Its out there in the consciousness and scammers are also out there in the same spaces, waiting in the bushes.. ready to pounce on people who don't know there are simpler, cheaper ways to access & use AI

I think it is my favorite model out of all of them. Its the one I tend to go to for just about everything now. I just found something called Octofriend that is supposedly really good set to GLM 4.5.

I have used it, but I just haven't found it good when I have, maybe its gotten better.

I have it as one of the free models in a chrome extension I was working on since I keep a list of tons of free APIs, just there are so many options and I tend to just use the top 5-10 best ones (that I have noticed as being great)

There has got to be probably 100 of these tools by now, yours is the only other one that has a UI that I have found.

Lot of people all get the same idea eventually.. we all run into the same problems eventually

What are you using GPT 4.1 with, anything? I find that it will follow your instructions REALLY well, so maybe whatever you are using it in, there is a problem with the prompt. Something might be telling it to do that. It really does do whatever you tell it (but you might not be able to see the full prompt if you are using GPT 4.1 with some kind of other tool/not raw).

Using it in Cline (free VS Code extension) it does exactly what it is told to do, I will have a bigger/smarter model figure out plans for it. It will edit files and just do stuff but its not really the model to think or plan etc.

this website is an after thought, i did NOT spend much time on it, like, at all. Its more like "ugh, i guess i should share what I know" and try to do it too fast so I can get back to the thing I want to do/having fun with

Honestly there just isn't any alternative - the quality I get from this method is just better.. and often times, less than that level of quality just sucks too much and in the long run takes up more time.

But I am trying some of the new CLI agent tools lately and some of them seem pretty good so far... It will take me time to really compare it though.

nice try, bot. I just don't like Amazon anything. I am onto their long term game.

They will give you free stuff, wait til its burned into your mind, then slowly raise the price or add annoying marketing trickery bs. Or lawyer-designed bs to trap you. I just don't want to live in that world.

totally sped thru vibe adding stuff lol whoops.. some stuff got a little messed up

I know this 'guide' is really raw and messy, but it seems that people prefer it that way. It doesn't sound AI generated and like.. when people try way too hard to sound like LinkedIn posts. I felt like I did some of it that way on purpose just because I kind of like it myself.. like it sounds ridiculous but funny calling it "my smart juice theory", but I don't really want to change that LOL. I know it could use some real clean up though. Not enough time in a day...

look up LLM7, and Pollinations AI. Both offer free GPT 4.1, but I am not sure how limited it is. They have tons more models but the names are different (openai-large = gpt-4.1)

Meta has free and generous APIs for the crappy Llama 4 models... they're okay at summarizing things but I have no idea if its any good for code. Prob not since no one even talks about those anymore.

thx - i did not know that. Will try to fix.

I should add a section to the site/guide about privacy, just letting people know they have somewhat of a choice with that.

As for sharing code, most of the parts of a project/app/whatever have already been done and if an experienced developer hears what your idea is, they could just make it and figure it out without any code. The code itself doesn't really seem that valuable (well.. sometimes). Someone can just look at a screenshot of my aicodeprep app and just make one and make it look the same too.

Not all the time of course - If I had some really unique sophisticated algorithms that I knew almost no one else would or has figured out, I would be more careful.

Speaking of privacy.. a while back a thought popped into my head about Slack, and all these unencrypted chat's businesses use. It kinda does seem crazy to do all your business operations over unencrypted chat, Slack rooms.. I personally would not trust Zuckerberg to not look in there and run lots of LLMs through all the conversations to find anything 'good'! Microsoft.. kinda doubt would do that on purpose but what's to stop a rogue employee from finding out some trade secrets etc.. I'd be suprised if it hasn't been done. Security is not usually a priority in tech. They half-ass care about your personal info.

some days.. it varies but a whole browser window is dedicated to it and always open

oops. was using AI trying to fix some of the bugs and update it real fast with some newer models, since this post was trending here. Hopefully its scrolling better. Link fixed. I know its still ridiculous looking with some of the page but at least its readable for now.

I don't like or love many things in life, but something about AI triggered that natural passion I had when I was first learning to code as a kid. Its just super fun. Coding without AI stopped being fun looong time ago. Unlucky brain or genetics maybe. AI sped up the dopamine feedback iteration loop to where my brain can really feel it again. I can get an idea in my head and just an hour later, have it 80% done and functioning. That gives me motivation, I won't get bored of the idea before I write the code.. which is what would happen a lot. Halfway done, get bored, then don't wanna continue.. AI fixed that

yeah i tried fixing it - the websites were more of an afterthought or annoying thing i had to do and definitely did it way too fast

well, most of the time, I just dump the entire codebase in if the context window is big and its a good model. But there are plenty of times when I need to block one folder in a repo or disable a few files because the files might "nudge" it in a wrong direction.

The surgical context tool (aicodeprep-gui) - there are at least 30 similar tools but most (if not all) are CLI only/no UI. I like UIs, I work faster with them for things like choosing individual files out of a big tree (at least it is using PySide6 library which is "lite" (could go lighter maybe), i HATE that too many things use webview/browsers. All the options on it are there for good reasons, its all focused on things that annoy me..and slow things down: like doing something repeatedly (copy paste copy paste or typing the same sentence over and over every time i have to do a certain thing with the AI and my code.

If you have not run 'aicp' (the command i gave it, but also there is a OS installer menu that will add a Windows/Mac/Linux right click context menu in their file managers) in a folder before, it will try to scan recursively to find code files, but it skips things like node_modules or .venv. but otherwise assumes most types of code files will probably be added so it checks them. You can fine tune it, add some .md or txt files or stuff in there that isn't code but might be helpful. When you generate the context block it puts the text inside the prompt box on the top AND/OR bottom - doing both can get better responses from AI.

It saves every file that is checked, and saves the window size, other window prefs, so you don't have to resize the window again. It saves the state of which files are checked so its less work / time next time. I have been just pasting the output from the LLMs into an agent like Cline but I am wondering if I should add browser automation / browser extension that does the copy pasting and also add option to edit / change files right after grabbing the output from a web chat. Its probably about good enough as it is though, not sure I want to make it into a big thing.

--- Yeah I just keep coming back to this workflow, its very reliable. I have not tried Claude Code yet but I will soon to see if they solved any of these problems.

Strange this thing has been at the top of hacker news for hours and hours.. weird! My server logs are just constant scrolling

really - no monthly subscriptions? i hate those but i am fine with bringing my own API URLs etc and paying. I'm building a router that will track all the free tokens from all the different providers and auto rotate them when daily tokens or time limits run out.

Continue and Zed.. gonna check them out, prompts in Cline are too long. I was thinking of just making my own VS Code extension but I need to try Claude Code with GLM 4.5 (heard it pairs nicely)

damn right !!!!