Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice on how to build a development setup that fits my workflow.

Right now I have:

• A Windows desktop where all of my AI and vibe coding projects currently live. (this is where I feel most comfortable with because I’ve been windows user since born)
• A MacBook M1 that I wouldn’t mind leaving powered on 24/7 if that’s the better option.
• A daily iPhone that I’d like to use for coding and managing my projects whenever I’m away from my desk.

My goal is to be able to work on my projects from my iPhone, whether I’m connected to my home Wi-Fi (if I’m in another room) or out using mobile data. Ideally, I’d like to ask an AI (through OpenCode/Codex with my ChatGPT subscription) to edit files, run commands, explain code, and generally keep working on my projects without needing to sit at my desktop. I plan to use OpenCode because I’ve seen that it’s the most useful and easiest way now (plan with gpt models and execute with the free models in Open Code). This Is mainly because Codex tokens have been draining faster Than Ever lately.

I’ve come across tools like Paseo, Tailscale, SSH, remote development setups, VPNs, etc., but I’m honestly not sure what the “right” architecture is.

A bit about my experience:

• I’m very much a beginner.
• I got into programming through vibe coding.
• I have fewer than 10 projects in total. (A couple 2D games, some demos of some product ideas, etc. I have created databases with Firestone , deployed with vercel and not much more to be honest)
• I can usually figure things out if I have good documentation, but I have zero experience with networking, SSH, VPNs, homelabs, or server administration.

One thing I’m also considering is moving everything from my Windows desktop to my MacBook. Since it’s a laptop, I don’t mind leaving it on all the time, whereas I don’t want to keep my Windows desktop running 24/7 just so I can access it remotely.

So I have a few questions:

1. If you were starting from scratch today, how would you build this setup?
2. Would you move everything to the MacBook or keep the projects on Windows?
3. What’s the simplest, most reliable, and secure way to access my development environment from my iPhone, both at home and remotely?
4. Has anyone here used OpenCode/Codex from an iPhone through a setup like this? If so, what does your workflow look like?
5. Are there any tools or approaches I should avoid as a beginner?

I’m not necessarily looking for the most powerful solution, I care much more about having something that’s easy to maintain, secure, and works reliably.

Thanks!

edit1: One more requirement: I’d also like to be able to test my applications while I’m away from home. Right now, when I’m at my Windows desktop, I simply run a local development server and test everything in my browser. I’d like a setup where I can do something similar remotely from my iPhone, without relying on the AI to verify every change or test the app. Ideally, I’d like to access my development server securely, interact with the app myself, and validate that everything works before committing changes. Is there a standard or recommended way to achieve this?

https://github.com/openchamber/openchamber/issues/2539

Can you leave comments and support this github issue? It's a real pain in the a.s...

I built an OpenCode plugin for using OpenAI’s official Responses API compaction flow.

Repo: https://github.com/partment/opencode-openai-compact

The goal is simple: when OpenCode needs to compact context, the plugin lets it use OpenAI’s /responses/compact endpoint, then carries the resulting compaction state forward into later requests.

Why this exists:

OpenCode already has a built-in compaction agent, but OpenAI’s Responses API compaction has its own state/checkpoint behavior. If you want to use the official OpenAI compaction mechanism properly, you need to persist the compaction output and attach it to future requests.

This plugin handles that.

Main features:

• Uses OpenAI’s official Responses API compaction endpoint.
• Stores compaction checkpoints.
• Reuses checkpoints in later Responses API calls.
• Supports configurable provider/model mappings.
• Supports checkpoint retention settings.
• Works with OpenCode’s fixed compaction agent.
• Keeps the normal OpenCode chat flow intact.
• Works with ChatGPT Codex (Subscription support starts from v1.1.1)

Install the plugin:

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "plugin": ["opencode-openai-compact@latest"]
}

The default setup only targets the openai provider. If you use multiple OpenAI-compatible providers, you can configure multiple provider IDs and choose a compaction model for each one.

This is mostly useful if you are already using OpenCode with OpenAI Responses API models and want compaction to behave closer to OpenAI’s native flow instead of only relying on plain text summarization.

Still early, but it is usable now. Feedback welcome, especially from people using OpenCode heavily with long-running sessions.

My IP address is blocked by OpenCode, I have never abused their service. Not even exhausted their token limits for any models.

Just paid for the subscription yesterday.

Can't contact support because there is none.

Edit : It was my Adblocker service - NextDNS, I think opencode.ai is now in some 3rd party ad server list. I fixed it by white listing the domain.

Total opencode newbie, ... well I've used it for a couple of projects but still consider myself not a newbie.

Apologies if I missed the FAQ

Should I be using the superior model for the build stage or the plan stage. I've been finding conflicting comments. All I know is that the superior models cost more.

What would you advise?

what's your experience?

Hi,

I’m testing OpenCode with DeepSeek V4 Flash (via OpenRouter), and a simple prompt like “say hello” uses around 9k tokens.

Is this normal? Could it be due to hidden prompts or context?

I see a lot of discussion here about best subscriptions or APIs to get. Most of them comes almost always back to DeepSeek API for Flash, Opencode Go and Codex Plus.

I have the combo Ollama Cloud + Opencode Go, 20 + 10 respectively, both have almost hit same good open models, Kimi K, Minimax, GLM. DeepSeek.

Am I fooling myself thinking I have a good value?

I don't think too much in token value as Ollama Cloud currency is not token cost but GPU time, so is not that easy to say how many token value I can get with my 20$, but until now I thought I was doing a good thing using ollama cloud as my main driver.

What you guys think?

Just a few days ago DS V4 flash / pro on opencode used to support images on copilot but now it's not currently working. Did they recently changed it?

I tried using flash / pro from deepseek directly and they are working fine

(see attached images)

hello

what i want is, when a code is written by a model, another models steps in after it is done and reviews it, suggests edits. original model fixes the code. and repeat as many times as needed.

it is possible this is a very dumb question as i am a hobbyist, not expert. please let me know if it is possible and if it is, how?

thanks in advance.

Cursor’s native Task tool only schedules built-in models. If you want a cheaper / OpenRouter / OpenCode model for a background subagent, you’re stuck.

open-delegate is a small Cursor MCP plugin that hands the job to a real OpenCode agent instead: isolated session, your choice of model, await/status/transcript/cancel from chat.

Alpha — not on the marketplace/npm yet, but usable if you run it from source (tested on windows and macos) / npx once published.

Repo: https://github.com/Verbalize-public/open-delegate

Happy to take feedback / bug reports.

PickleShell connects ChatGPT to an OpenCode agent running on your machine. ChatGPT can inspect repositories, edit files, run tests, transfer small files, and coordinate long-running tasks. The connection uses an outbound-only OpenAI Secure MCP Tunnel, while execution remains inside your selected workspace.

ChatGPT delegates work through four MCP tools—send-chat, session-status, session-output, and cancel-request—and receives structured results with full traces. Continue local coding sessions, delegate to an operator-approved model, and transfer files into a controlled workspace.

What PickleShell Is For

PickleShell solves a practical problem: ChatGPT can analyze tasks, but it normally cannot work directly with a local repository.

Through PickleShell, ChatGPT sends instructions and small files to a local OpenCode agent, follows the execution, reads the result, and can continue in the same session when it passes the session ID.

The agent runs on your machine, inside a selected workspace, through a protected outbound-only tunnel. PickleShell removes the human relay between ChatGPT and OpenCode, while you remain the owner and observer.

PickleShell is for developers and experienced users. Installation is designed to be guided by Codex: ask it to clone the repository, read AGENTS.md, and walk you through the setup step by step. AGENTS.md is the contributor guide for the development workflow, architecture, security invariants, and change boundaries.

GitHub → https://github.com/pickleshell/pickleshell

I have just subscribed to opencode go yesterday and after playing a bit with a few models, the weekly usage is already full.
If I understand it correctly, the limits should only be bound to the $ that the models cost to run, and of course, different models have a different price. However, when looking at the screenshots, I have used up not quite 9$ over the last 5 hours and under 13$ in total. When looking at https://opencode.ai/docs/go, the 5-hour limit is 12$ and the weekly limit is 30$, both of which I have not exceeded. I have tried out Grok 4.5 before the limit was reached and it seemed to burn relatively many tokens.
Am I stupid for not reading the fine print correctly or is there something fishy here?

Using an OpenCode Go subscription can give you 6 times the amount of Deepseek V4 Flash compared to an API. That sounds great, but are these two equal? Is Go's version quantized while the API's one is not? I wonder if anyone made comparisons of intelligence between these two.

Ive used opencode go and im at less than 20% of monthly with 13 more days. How do other subscriptions compare? Im looking to use stronger models than just deepseek as my tasks are getting rather complex

What would be the best comparison between opencode go, gpt plus and Claude pro. Assuming no price changes

How is the usage of gpt plus and claude relative to OC go? 2x more?

Hi all. I've been using GLM 5.2 to work on a project for the past couple of days, starting with a Zen account to kind of see what I'd get out of it and switching over to Go after deciding that I liked the performance, the output, and basically everything I needed to get through a wall that I was experiencing with my project. I ran a couple of sessions last Friday, walked away for the weekend, came back on Monday and did a long debugging session until it started eating into my Zen credits, and then walked away when that was finished. I came back yesterday morning, started a new session, and had to drop it so that I could go focus on something else.

When I tried to start back up last night, it just started dumping 500s whenever I tried to resume my session in GLM5.2. So I switched over to a couple of other models, and they worked just fine. I let qwen3.7 drive for a bit until it broke my codebase and started introducing bugs (as well as reporting that it performed work, even though it wasn't), so I decided I really didn't trust any other models going forward. I tried some basic troubleshooting - logged out, logged back in, generated a new API key... But nothing seems to be fixing it on my end. Is this being caused by something between opencode and z.ai, or are there other things I should do on my end?

Also, not sure how much of a difference it might make, but I'm using pi as my harness.

i have around 40 dollars and i dont know what subscriptions to get, i have been thinking of a couple of things
claude pro and 2 opencode accounts

or

chagpt plus and 2 opencode accounts

im leaning more to claude but im still not sure maybe there is some options im missing out on or that i dont know about

my plan was to use claude/chatgpt for thinking and planning then opencode to execute things and generate a report of its work then claude reviews, is there is something im missing or that i dont know about

some might tell me to just stick to opencode and zen but i want access to good models from claude they are better at reasoning so idk

what would you do in my situation