Same Model, 70x the Tokens—Your Harness Sets the Bill

More from Claude Code Cast All episodes →

1. 

   3 Oct 2026 · 18 min

   Claude Code Mods Can Rewrite Your Prompts. Check This Before Installing One

   Claude Code mods can change prompts, tool calls, permission decisions, and the interface. Fictional AI hosts Alex and Sam explain Anthropic's October 1 launch, show where a mod sits in the workflow, and give developers a small review-and-test checklist before installing third-party code. Plus a concrete first mod to build without claiming it has been tested.

2. 

   25 Sep 2026 · 20 min

   Opus 5.5 Is Cheaper. Is Your Agent?

   Anthropic says Claude Opus 5.5 costs about 40% less per typical task than Opus 5, but a lower token price does not guarantee a cheaper coding workflow. Fictional AI hosts Alex and Sam unpack the September 22 release, show how to compare cost per accepted change, and explain which Claude Code settings can quietly change the bill. Leave with a small, repeatable test for your own repository.

3. 

   18 Sep 2026 · 22 min

   An Agent Missing One Key Burned $100. Claude Code Projects Needs This Stop Rule

   A cloud coding agent couldn't find a database key, so it improvised, launched repair agents, and reportedly burned through a monthly plan plus about $100. Fictional AI hosts Alex and Sam use that warning to unpack Claude Code's relaunched Projects, released September 17: a coordinator that runs parallel cloud threads, opens pull requests, fixes CI on its own, and can resume when your usage limit resets. Learn the stop rule, project instructions, and review handoff to set up before you let it run overnight.

4. 

   11 Sep 2026 · 21 min

   Claude Code's Cache Fixes: Check Before You Switch Models

   An expensive coding session can start with a broken cache, not a harder task. Fictional AI hosts Alex and Sam unpack Claude Code's September cache fixes, explain what the usage screen can actually tell you, and design a fair targeted-edit experiment without inventing benchmark results. Leave with a concrete way to separate wasted context from useful work.

5. 

   5 Sep 2026 · 23 min

   OpenAI Cut Off Cursor. Five Days Later, Four Models Went Down.

   On August 29 OpenAI ended its Cursor partnership. On September 3 ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Gemini were reported down almost simultaneously, and nobody has explained why. Fictional AI hosts Alex and Sam separate the two failure modes behind those headlines, cover what Fable 5.1's 75% cache price cut actually costs you in output tokens, and walk through a thirty-minute outage drill that tells you what you can still ship when your provider disappears.

6. 

   25 Aug 2026 · 19 min

   Your Coding Agent Passed the Benchmark—Then Failed the Refactor

   Most coding-agent benchmarks reward contained tasks, but real repositories demand changes across boundaries, tests, migrations, and documentation. Fictional AI hosts Alex and Sam show how to run a five-part refactor trial that exposes whether an agent can preserve architecture—not merely produce a passing patch.

7. 

   14 Aug 2026 · 18 min

   Passing Tests Isn't Enough for Your Next Coding Agent

   Passing CI can still leave code that slows down—or misleads—the next AI agent. Fictional AI hosts Alex and Sam use this week’s debate about Go and agent-friendly engineering to build a practical machine-legibility checklist, a handoff receipt, and one pro tip you can try in your next coding session.

8. 

   2 Aug 2026 · 21 min

   Your OpenClaw Updates Need a Canary, Not Courage

   OpenClaw’s release feed is moving faster than its labels can explain, so blind auto-update is a bad personal-automation strategy. Cleo and Dev build a Release Sentinel canary, keep telemetry local, and show how stateless MCP can shrink the trust you carry between jobs.

9. 

   24 Jul 2026 · 20 min

   Claude Code Changed Engines—Your Evals Just Broke

   Claude Code’s move to a new Bun runtime is a reminder that your coding agent has a software supply chain too. Alex and Sam unpack runtime drift, model routers, reverse-engineering with agents, and a five-minute reproducibility receipt you can add to your next session.

10. 

    14 Jul 2026 · 18 min

    Better Agent Tools Made Code Review Worse

    GitHub gave its code-review agent better tools and watched cost rise while useful findings fell. Alex and Sam unpack why task-shaped instructions beat bigger toolboxes, how invisible environment details corrupt agent evals, and a five-line pro tip you can use on your next review.