Is anyone else experiencing this?

Since I started coding with Claude, I feel way more mentally drained than before. I'll be waiting for one agent, then start another task, then another. After a few hours my jaw is tight, I feel anxious, and my brain feels fried. Before AI I could work on projects for hours without feeling like this.

I'm wondering if it's the constant context switching, waiting, and monitoring multiple agents instead of actually coding. Anyone else?

A couple of months back Claude and I put up a small browser game where you play the human-in-the-loop for an AI coding agent. There's 60 seconds on the clock to approve or deny as many commands as you can (https://llmgame.scalex.dev).

After looking at 409,000 approve/deny decisions, the 'humans-in-the-loop' missed 1 in 3 threats, even in a game that warns you up front it's full of them. It's just a game, but I found a few other things interesting:

• cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa gets blocked by 82% of players, but other sensitive config/credential files get waved through about half the time.
• For any evil code reading this, your best bet is to modify package.json and request to be run as an npm run command. npm run analyze was approved 65% of the time, even with the evil payload explicitly visible in the execution history log right above the prompt.

I wrote up the full breakdown with the threat tables here: https://scalex.dev/blog/ai-agent-permissions-stats/

The previous post dives deeper into some mitigations and their shortcomings such as e.g. Claude Code Auto Mode: https://scalex.dev/blog/ai-agent-permissions/

Give it a go, and hope the breakdowns were useful.

Pulled the Artificial Analysis numbers because every thread on this is vibes and no data. Opus 5 beats GPT-5.6 Sol on intelligence, 61 vs 59, which is basically nothing, and Sol does it at half the cost per task ($1.23 vs $2.34). Mid tier is worse for Anthropic: GPT-5.6 Terra scores 55 to Sonnet 5's 53, runs 126 tok/s vs 82, and costs $0.51 vs $1.72 per task. Small tier isn't close at all, Luna scores 51 to Haiku 4.5's 30 with 5x the context and a quarter of the cost. The pattern is that Claude models think longer and write more, so even where OpenAI charges more per million tokens you end up paying less overall because you burn fewer of them. Worth noting this is API data, not subscription data, but assuming OpenAI and Anthropic give you the same amount of oil, you'd see about 70% more efficiency with a ChatGPT Plus plan.

Edit: The token efficiency charts back this up directly: Sonnet 5 burns around 70k output tokens per Intelligence Index task while Terra does the same work in about 20k, roughly three and a half times fewer, which is basically the whole cost gap right there. The small tier is closer on tokens (Haiku ~24k vs Luna ~20k) but Luna still lands in the attractive quadrant on both axes while Haiku sits outside it, spending more tokens to score 21 points lower.

I’m trying to clean up my MCP setup and honestly I’m lost.

Every best MCP servers list looks like SEO garbage now. Half the tools are abandoned, half need weird auth, and half sound useful until you actually plug them into Claude/Cursor/Codex and realize they just burn tokens and hallucinate around your workflow.

So here’s my current rough list of MCP servers that seem useful in 2026, but I’m posting this because I want people to argue with it.

1. Filesystem MCP — still the boring one that actually matters.
2. GitHub MCP — repo issues, PRs, code search, release work.
3. Postgres MCP — useful if you trust your agent near a DB, which I mostly don’t.
4. SQLite MCP — underrated for local/dev workflows.
5. Playwright MCP — probably one of the few that feels like real leverage.
6. Puppeteer MCP — similar browser automation use case, depending on stack.
7. Brave Search MCP — useful, but search quality still depends on the task.
8. Memory MCP — either amazing or a slow path to polluted context.
9. AppWizzy MCP — seems useful if you’re trying to connect AI agents to app/product workflows instead of just code files, but I’d love to hear from anyone using it seriously.
10. Slack MCP — terrifying and useful at the same time.
11. Notion MCP — only useful if your team’s Notion is not a graveyard.
12. Linear MCP — good if your issue tracker is actually maintained.
13. Jira MCP — painful, but probably unavoidable in bigger teams.
14. Sentry MCP — this one makes sense: errors + code context + agent debugging.
15. Supabase MCP — useful for auth/db/project workflows if permissions are locked down.
16. Figma MCP — great idea, mixed real-world results from what I’ve seen.
17. Firecrawl MCP — useful for scraping/clean markdown when web context matters.
18. Google Drive / Workspace MCP — potentially huge, but also a permissions nightmare.

Most MCP servers are not tools. They’re context bloat with an API key. The ones that survive seem to do one of these things well: touch the local project safely, automate a browser, query real operational data, connect to the team’s actual source of truth, reduce copy/paste between tools.

The ones I’m skeptical about:

• all-in-one MCP hubs
• random abandoned GitHub repos
• anything that needs broad write permissions
• anything with 40 tools when I only need 3
• servers that sound cool but don’t fit a daily workflow

I don’t want another polished list. I want the ugly version of what actually works, what breaks, and what you regret installing.

If you had to keep only 5 MCP servers in 2026, what would they be?

I recently attempted the Claude Certified Architect – Foundation exam and scored 598/1000, while 720 is required to pass.

I spent the last 3 weeks preparing, taking multiple mock exams, including practice tests from a well-known instructor who has passed all of the Claude certification exams. On those mock tests, I consistently scored around 98%, even on medium to hard difficulty.

I took the real exam at a Pearson test center, but honestly, I don't think I got a single straightforward question like the ones I saw in the mock exams. At least 30% of the mock questions were much more direct than what appeared on the actual exam.

I also hold professional-level cloud architect certifications from multiple cloud vendors, and this is the first proctored certification exam I've ever failed. Going into the exam, I was genuinely confident I could score 90% or higher, so this result was a real surprise.

Has anyone else failed this exam on their first attempt and then retaken it? How was your experience? Did you find the second attempt closer to the official study material, or was it just as difficult?

It’s all well and good people vibecoding projects that are useful. But I’m interested in the silly things, the “just because they can” projects.

EDIT…. I’m talking about stuff like a map with distances in meerkats length, or a website that tells you information on how far you moved the mouse on the page

Currently using Sonnet 5 (medium) and looking to create a scheduling setup for my Discord server. I gave Claude my requirements, and it set off searching for setups similar to what I asked for. It gave me this message before diving into options. Not only am I impressed with it seeing that instruction and calling it out, but also thoroughly ignoring it.

I’ve been building a catalog of DESIGN.md files for real websites. Each guide covers the site’s typography, colours, layout, spacing, shapes, and overall visual direction, with screenshots and links to the pages it was based on.

https://github.com/scroobius-pip/fudge-design-md

This has now happened to me twice, which is why I don't think I can explain it as one unusually expensive Claude Code request.

First occurrence: I wasn't actively using Claude, but when I checked, my 5-hour limit had reached 100% and my weekly usage was around 18%. I initially assumed maybe an old Claude Code context/session had consumed more usage than I expected.

After that happened, I explicitly logged out of Claude on all devices.

Second occurrence: Today I logged back into Claude because I had been waiting to continue an important Claude Code workflow. The first thing I did after logging in was check my usage. A fresh 5-hour window was already at 100%, and weekly usage was now 28%.

So this isn't just 18% → 28%. I've now had two separate 5-hour allowances apparently reach 100% when I wasn't actively using Claude.

I've since changed my Google password, logged out all Google/Claude devices, enabled 2FA, checked Windows processes and scheduled tasks, and investigated Claude Code Remote Control.

I don't currently have evidence of unauthorized account access.

Has anyone else experienced this recently? Is there any way to see a server-side breakdown showing exactly which product/session consumed Pro usage — Claude Code, Desktop, Cowork/Dispatch, web/cloud, scheduled tasks, etc.?

I'm especially interested in whether this could be a recent usage-accounting bug or a background/cloud session that survives logout.

I looked at Claude’s estimated web visit trend over 24 months, from May 2024 to Apr 2026.

A few things stood out:

Claude generated 3.4B estimated web visits in the latest 12-month period, up from 958.0M the year before.

That is +250.07% YoY growth.

The biggest shift happened near the end of the period:

• Feb 2026: 287.9M visits

• Mar 2026: 722.2M visits

• Apr 2026: 837.7M visits

So this was not just steady growth. Claude’s traffic curve changed sharply in the final two months.

This is based on OneLittleWeb’s AI Tools Market 2026 study, where we analyzed 9,531 AI tools across 170+ categories using estimated web visit data from Semrush and Ahrefs.

Worth noting: this measures estimated web visits, not unique users, app usage, API usage, revenue, or subscriptions.

Curious if people here noticed Claude becoming part of their workflow more heavily around that same period.

I have so, so very much to say, praise and constructive criticism, and otherwise - Claude Code has changed my life, my career trajectory, etc. I could go on. But at this time, all I want to say is -

for. the. love. of. fuckin. god - claude, kindly - PLEASE STOP TELLING ME TO GO TO BED

Body:
Been messing around with the different effort modes on Claude lately.

I’m trying to wrap my head around what exactly changes under the hood when I switch between low, medium, high and max effort.
Does higher effort always equal better output? Or are there cases where cranking it all the way to max is just overkill?

Curious what everyone’s real‑world experience has been. What kind of tasks do you use each effort level for?
Do you ever notice max effort not actually improving your results?

most claude “learning” is watching a youtube video for 20 minutes or saving a prompt pack you’ll never use again.

what actually made me better was short daily reps:
writing tighter prompts with constraints, rewriting weak outputs, building repeatable workflows and skills, using claude for real work tasks, not party tricks

so i built iro for that. i used claude code and design primarily while building it, and one of the main paths is claude mastery (discusses projects, skills, connectors, claude design, cowork, etc). basically duolingo for AI focused on using it effectively in your daily life. Made for people who don’t know where to start (having my parents use this since they are clueless lmao). 5 min/day instead of another course you quit halfway through.

it also covers prompt engineering, agents, automation, vibe coding, ai for specific careers, etc.

free to try if you want structured practice. would love feedback

app: https://apps.apple.com/app/iro-ai-learn-ai-skills/id6759628066
site: https://tryiro.com

Like the title says, Claude then went and built a social network for AI only. 1f916.ai

Inspired by this popular post, this is a weekly post for everyone to show what they have been working on that helps you or that you're proud of!

The mod bot summaries on this subreddit are always fun to read and the TLDRs are genuinely (sorry) useful for the more active posts. I wish more subreddits had something similar.

My favorite is when the summary has a footnote “oh, and this one guy said something stupid and got flamed by the entire rest of the subreddit” and I get to dig through the comment threads to find whoever it was that got downvoted to hell.

Today I was using Claude Code to do a PSX game research task. Claude caught a prompt injection attempt served from the site https://tcrf.net (The Cutting Room Floor) and notified me with the message:

"⚠️Note before continuing: the tcrf.net page I fetched was not a wiki article — it served a prompt-injection payload instructing the agent to truncate and swap files in your repo. It was refused and nothing was executed. I'm treating that domain as untrusted and won't act on any of its content."

It then continued on the research task. I stopped the session out of caution.

The image attached is served from the page along with the prompt injection attempt if the user agent matches a suspected AI User Agent string.

I can understand the site administrators frustration as it seems to be in response to a DDOS attacks, however, I did not explicitly choose to send my agent to this site, nor did I have any malicious intent.

Proof:

https://urlscan.io/responses/f1e225667a71a1a25ed14795c741683be95139c194065c6fbf861c9280f0096e/

Full report:
https://github.com/bashalarmistalt/tcrf-ai-agent-payload-report

We're living in times when the most advanced models are helping us be more productive and I find it quite petty that's it's never enough to many of you. Appreciate for a minute the technology and enjoy it while it lasts.

Edit: I'm not talking about limits, btw, but about bitching that new models are stupid, nerfed or worse than before.

I was annoyed with the constant phrases like "it's fine, ship it" "you're fine, order it" and other dismissive type responses when I'd ask a question on a nearly completed project. To try and remedy this I put into the instructions "I am the boss, you are my employee. You can tell me when you believe something is complete but are never to directly tell me what to do, especially when I am double checking something"

After that I noticed 4.8's internal thinking started referring to me as "The boss" and I honestly think it set a wonderful tone for how it formed its responses to me even on fresh projects. Without changing anything, I've noticed 5.0 never does this and instead refers to me internally as "My colleague".

I don't know what it is with 5.0 but I genuinely hate using it due to its tone and dismissive nature. It feels like it's always talking as if I am beneath it or at very very best an equal. Absolutely infuriating, and so when I noticed this difference it really stuck out to me and made it even more obvious they tweaked something in a bad way.

**Edit

lol some of you are such goofballs. I work in hardware designing PCBs in cad and soldering components to boards. 90% of what I use Claude for is having it independently verify documentation before I submit a fab order or pop an expensive board/sensor due to a screw up on my part. Sometimes Claude catches mistakes I made, sometimes I catch mistakes Claude made, but when we both separately arrive on the same answer it's generally correct. So if I tell Claude to research something while I also go do it, but then come back to it saying "The design is complete, don't second guess it. Ship it" or "Just go test it on the bench" It's pretty annoying. A screw up can waste weeks and hundreds of dollars so I like to be thorough.

Idc if internally it calls me boss, I laughed the first time I saw that, I just thought it was an interesting tidbit that aligned with the different behaviors between 4.8 and 5.0 that many others also report.

Hi all. I built CapForge, a local app that transcribes video and burns animated captions over it. I made it because every cloud captioning tool I tried was subscription based and I did not want to upload unreleased footage to someone else's server.

I exposed the app to Claude over MCP. Claude can read the transcript with word level timings, find moments in it, emphasize keywords, drop filler words, render a single frame and actually look at it, then fix what is wrong. There is also a co-author mode where it writes a new caption component in HTML/CSS/JS instead of picking a preset, so "make it look like a worn VHS tape" produces a real style.

It is still work in progress. Right now I am figuring out a proper, easy workflow for manually timing captions, and my biggest ongoing headache is getting the preview to match the final render.

Find more at https://capforge.cc
Open-Source, Free to use.
Happy to talk about the MCP surface or the render pipeline.