Comment by hatmanstack

5 days ago

Why are we using cli wrappers if you're using Claude Code? I get if you need something like Codex but they released sub agents today so maybe not even that, but it's an unnecessary wrapper for Claude Code.

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hatmanstack

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odie5533  5 days ago

Wrappers are useful for some tasks. I use ralph loops for things that are extremely complicated and take days of work. Like reverse engineering projects or large scale migration efforts.

  • hatmanstack  5 days ago

    Even with the 1 mil context windows? Can't you just keep the orchestrator going and run sub agents? Maybe the added space is too new? I also haven't tested out the context rot from 300K and up. Would love some color on it from first hand exp.

    • odie5533  5 days ago

      It's not a context issue so much as a focus issue. The agent will complete part of a task and then ask if I want it to continue. Even if I told it I want it to keep going until all tasks are complete. Using a wrapper deals with that behavior.

      Most projects I do take 20 minutes or less for an agent to complete and those don't need a wrapper. But for longer tasks, like hours or days, it gets distracted.

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roncesvalles  5 days ago

So that you can have a fresh context for every little thing. These harnesses basically marry LLMs with deterministic software logic. The harness programmatically generates the prompts and stores the output, step by step.

You never want the LLM to do anything that deterministic software does better, because it inflates the context and is not guaranteed to be done accurately. This includes things like tracking progress, figuring out dependency ordering, etc.

gtirloni  5 days ago

GSD and superpowers aren't CLI wrappers?

  • hatmanstack  5 days ago

    It's a cli wrapper. Don't know how you could say it wasn't.

    edit: GSD is a cli wrapper, Superpowers not so much. Both are over-engineered for an easy problem IMHO.

    • ramoz  5 days ago

      Both are dramatically over-engineered. & That's okay. I find them to be products of an industry reconciling how to really work with AI as well as optimize workflows around it. Similar to Gastown et al.

      Otherwise, if you can own your own thinking, orchestrating, and steering of agents, you're in a more mature place.

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