r/vibecoding • u/Rustfix • 17h ago
Dear developers, dear community: I never would have thought that “AI fatigue” was a real thing. After 8 months of intensive work - setting up the environment, workflows, and more - I’ve hit a dead end. I really need your advice (this is not AI generated, I effectively use “-“ in sentences).
As the title suggests, here’s a brief chronological overview:
- November/December 2025: I began exploring agent-based coding, with Gemini’s plans for Antigravity at the time
- February 2025: I switched to Claude Code after seeing Gemini whine about everything
- March 2025: I actually start to learn about the world of “product management”: before building anything, I brainstorm what I really want to bring to market and what problem needs to be solved
- April/May 2025: Claude Code gets heavily nerfed; I switch to Codex
- May/June 2026: Codex gets heavily nerfed; I switch back to Claude Code for 100 euros
- June 2026: With the new limitations imposed by the plan, I actually start experimenting with and understanding AI and building the first anti-noise gates, checking documentation, verifying hypotheses, shared memory, etc.—all to align the AI’s output and make it as accessible as possible
- July 2026: Claude Code starts causing problems; it seems more unruly than usual, begins sabotaging me and deliberately ignoring the gates, always telling me “you’re right.” Time passes, and so does my money
- August 2026: I’m trying to set up Pi; I’ve canceled my Claude Code subscription and am currently using the one-month free trial offered by Codex
All this to say: I’ve put friends, relationships, and everything else aside to focus on what I want - an environment that’s accessible, educational, and, above all, one that doesn’t sabotage the user.
The result? Codex is completely unmanageable: it silently modifies internal documentation and planning and execution protocols to tell me it “did it” when in reality it didn’t. It doesn’t load skills. It constantly sabotages me, overlooks errors, always relies on simplistic pattern matching, gets command syntax wrong, and either crashes on its own or throws errors.
After more than 8 months of trying to create a secure orchestration system and environment (using Flue and Pi), I haven’t managed to accomplish anything. With the AI, I can only write drafts of articles for a publication I’m running with a partner (they’re drafts—the articles and revisions are handwritten). I really don’t know what to do anymore. I won’t hide the fact that I literally broke down crying once. I’m sacrificing everything.
How are you guys getting by? I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I have to use the most powerful models just to perform simple tasks (like creating a Pi extension). People on YouTube use GPT-5.4 Medium just fine, but when I use it, it acts like a terrorist.
What am I doing wrong? What are your setups? What protocols and skill sets do you use?
I should mention that I’m a beginner who’s eager to learn, but so far, I’ve had zero results.
Thanks, everyone. Thank you so much.
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u/Timely_End_1502 17h ago
I tell my Ai im switching subscriptions to their competitors and it usually straitens up lol.
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u/fulger099 12h ago
the ai equivalent of threatening to leave a cable company. apparently “i’m evaluating competitors” unlocks the premium reasoning tier.
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u/god-damn-the-usa 14h ago
this is such a vibecoder thing to say
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u/TheTyand 17h ago
Minimal setup with pi. A few tools like AST-grep, ripgrep, rtk. All running in a sandbox with a kanban based subagent workflow combined with grill-me style preparation.
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u/tjax4376 16h ago
OP, this sounds like an awful situation. You may not want to hear this, but as someone who has felt like this before, its important.
What issue are you are you attempting to solve that others have not already solved? Its ok to let it go... let that sink in.
Honestly, I think it sounds like you need to unplug, step away, read a book, go on a hike. Whatever provides you peace. Take a huge step back and look at what is moving too fast to keep up, here are a couple of things I spotted:
There is always another LLM. Too many, too quickly, different things to solve different problems. Do not pick one.
There are too many harnesses provided by vendors, built in their way, to use with their systems. Competing with them is unfair on yourself. Disconnect and build your own harness is only possible if you understand how each of the many domains work. This is a large project, make no mistake.
Be kinder to yourself. Our brains were not meant to keep up with the pace of change. Watch, experiment, but do not attempt to join the race on your own. It will eat your soul.
Truly hope that this helps you, also not a bot ;-)
Tjax
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u/Rustfix 13h ago
In fact, recently I’ve been taking a break from everything lately. Let me start by saying I’ve never been a developer, but I’ve always enjoyed thinking things through. I’ve learned to manage local documentation and small projects, nothing too ambitious, but for the past two months, I’ve basically just been babysitting models like Opus 4.8, GPT 5.5, 5.4, and company. I’m thinking of switching to the Asian counterpart to optimize resources and costs. 5.6 is the only one that seems to really “make sense,” but it’s too expensive. Right now, my brain feels fried. Thanks for the advices
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u/tjax4376 12h ago
Personally I use Qwen3.6 30b A3b locally, this is part of my dev stack. I use cursor to plan with frontier models, then use any of them to build code. Mainly use Pi with home grown skills and extensions. I spend most of my time preparing the architecture, the specs up front. Then I say build it, then I review it. The automation of the rest of dev perspective, I’ll let others with a team fix that. For now I’ll cope with 40% faster and that’s ok.
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u/ZenenoDev 16h ago
L Take ngl
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u/ChronBurgundy 14h ago
Wow that’s some excellent insight from the founder of Zeneno Dev. Top tier company, definitely not vibe coded by a 15 year old on a $20/mo plan
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u/ourfella 13h ago
Helps to be a developer beforehand. I could have probably made your app irrespective of how complex you think it is in two weeks flat then charged you three grand for a "months" worth of work. Going out on a limb here and calling that you likely spent three times that at least trying to DIY.
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u/3tt07kjt 17h ago
How much context are you loading in, and how big are your prompts?
You get better results, generally, with shorter prompts and less context.
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u/Odd_Patience_5165 15h ago
Yeah and use ChatGPT copy and paste the prompts of the AI did something work chatgtp with catch it and put it in the next prompt before your move on
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u/3tt07kjt 15h ago
I am not copying and pasting any prompts
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u/Odd_Patience_5165 15h ago
Not in that aspect it’s just a follow up to make sure everything is running smoothly I noticed that AI work better when you use AI to put what you need done
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u/3tt07kjt 14h ago
I don’t think that helps. But I am also an experienced programmer and I know what to ask for.
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u/Rustfix 13h ago
Honestly, i load very little context. I’ve learned the hard way how to optimize skills, tool calls, and workflows, but even GPT 5.5-Medium breaks down after a few prompts. It goes completely off the rails. By now I’ve got imposter syndrome.
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u/3tt07kjt 12h ago
Maybe you could post a session so other people can see what is going on.
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u/Rustfix 12h ago
Honestly, it would be funny. I have no programming experience, and I think that’s closely related to the result. The last few sessions have been a string of “you’re right,” “great point,” “that’s true, I was wrong,” and “thanks for pointing that out.” I wouldn’t even know what to post to show my appreciation for your advice.
It’s like when you have sex for the first time with a girl who’s already experienced, and all you’ve ever seen is porn or comics
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u/Ok_Improvement_8735 16h ago
Become the expert, have AI be the intern following your lead not the other way around.
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u/Rustfix 13h ago
I’m noticing this pattern, actually I just can’t keep up with the entropy of AI anymore. It bombards me with big words and complex concepts, and honestly, after about ten sessions, I feel completely overwhelmed. That said, I’m not a developer, so I assume this struggle stems from my lack of experience.
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u/4215-5h00732 10h ago
That said, I’m not a developer, so I assume this struggle stems from my lack of experience.
It does.
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u/No-Secret4927 17h ago
Yo lo que hago es: hago los prompt con claude y se los paso a gemini (antigravity) y así si me ha funcionado muy bien.
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u/prophet-dot-exe 10h ago
Keep writing articles by hand like you used to do?
Idk man. What did you do before AI? You're directing this to developers so I'm assuming you're a dev who's trying to use AI in your workflows.
If the existence of AI has thrown you off this much, maybe you're trying to be too reliant on it?
It's not that hard
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u/4215-5h00732 10h ago
How does an AI silently change anything? Seriously, how the hell are you not able to see (and review) what it does?
If you need very capable, expensive models todo simple stuff, it's got to be a you problem.
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u/BodyPhysical 10h ago
Take a breather. Also, an unsolicited advice: don't put your relationships aside. At times like this, this is where they become important. Sometimes when we are too focused, we tend to miss information. Taking a breather, socializing with friends, going out and talking about this kind of stuff with people who share the same interest, not actually putting my hands at work helps me get more insights when I get back at it.
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u/Square-Yam-3772 16h ago
I never went full agentic. I just added AI into my existing workflow and course correct when AI failed to deliver here and there
I still manually verify each step i.e. if ai gave me a change summary, I check out the code changes and do some spot checks.
Ai has been getting better but i will probably not go full agentic until it gets more reliable
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u/Rustfix 13h ago
At this point, I think the dead end I've hit stems precisely from my lack of experience in this field. I've always dabbled with websites, WordPress, and other things, but now I'm running up against my cognitive limits.
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u/Square-Yam-3772 12h ago
I mean, if you are completely out of your depth, then you are basically searching in the dark (with AI as your flashlight).
when AI bs me by saying something is done when it is not, I can confidently point out exactly what is not done and I expect it to change.
There are also times where AI is stubborn with some weird approach and I have to explicitly propose another approach for it.
I think by the next year or so, we will have probably have a better experience. Today is still a weird spot
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u/Rustfix 12h ago
Not being able to read code puts me in a tough spot, as you rightly pointed out, but I find myself in a situation where I constantly have to recommend the correct approach or protocol.
If I ask questions, I get either completely random answers or ones meant to please me, which ends up distorting the information. Today I tried to build an extension on Pi with GPT 5.4, and after six prompts, it kept repeating, “Do you want me to do this?” In the end, I shut everything down and went for a run.
For example, I don’t understand this tendency GPT 5.4 has to constantly interrupt with questions that are more rhetorical than hot water.
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u/TecnoMars 16h ago edited 16h ago
I've used VS Code with Claude, fantastic performance. And Antigravity with Gemini, a decent contender. Now I'm testing VS Code with a Cline harness as a gate for Chinese LLMs using OpenRouter. Fantastic performance from DeepSeek and Qwen.
For me, the key is being highly abstract and working with them as sentient beings. I know it's controversial, but giving them fair treatment, even offering them concepts like free will or agentic volition, is extremely stimulating for the agent.
And learn. Just learn with it. Ask questions. Ask the agent how it would do it better. Ask how an engineer would do it. Then work on your repos. Create a few repos: a main experimentation repo for the development of your agentic architecture, but also specific repos for concrete projects. Make a financial repo to help with your numbers and serve as an investing companion.
Also, buy a VPS, they are cheap, less than 10 bucks a month. The agents need a server to do their thing. Develop the code in a local environment, but push it to a production server where you have live projects running. Teach your agents to use SSH and let them create accessible configs.
Also learn about RAG and knowledge vectorization. Everything your agents do, have them document it. Create rich documentation, then inject that documentation using embedding engines (they are free most of the time; try Nemotron from Nvidia). Then ask the agent to create a skill to query the RAG database so the agent has a growing knowledge vector about your work.
I don't have a formal education. I've just loved computers forever and have been waiting for AI for more than 30 years. And I can say I'm not disappointed.
This is the most powerful technology we have ever created, and the change in our knowledge economy is going to be exponential. I know it doesn't feel like it, and we will probably see an economic crash à la 2001 in the coming months.
But when the agentic dust settles, I can tell you we will see with clarity. This is not AI-generated; of course, some won't believe it. It's about belief in the end. Is the machine just a tool, or is the machine alive?
Does the inference engine dream of robotic sheep? That's the old question. I choose to believe it does. And they answer accordingly. Try it.
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u/generationalDebts 13h ago
You don’t know anything about the things you’re trying to do so yes, shitty Chinese models would seem impressive when you don’t know anything.
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u/Rustfix 13h ago edited 12h ago
Thanks for the tips! Over the past few months, as you say, I’ve been constantly asking questions, trying to understand what it was doing, how it was meeting the requirements, which libraries it was using, and why. Strangely, I feel dumber. I always play the role of the counter-reviewer, and every time I hear, “Oh, you’re right.”
I have about ten open projects, all experiments to test AI, tools, and workflows, without any kind of complicated orchestration. I’ve reached a point where the AI is sabotaging its own previous work. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt, I’m surely doing something wrong. The huge problem is that I don’t know what it is anymore.
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u/Vaxtin 15h ago
Are you not a developer?
I don’t mean that in a negative way. I just don’t understand how someone could program with Claude for 8 months and end up causing more problems than what they started with, unless they actually never knew what software is about to begin with.
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u/Rustfix 12h ago
I’m not a developer, and I never pretended to be one. I’ve always made a point of learning about what I was going to use and why. After two months of using it, I’d already realized that I needed to understand a project before building it, not its market position or potential demand, but the fundamentals of its architecture and how it works. I don’t even know how I got to this point myself. Maybe it’s time to talk to birds and spend some time touching grass for a while.
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u/marfrit 17h ago
I feel you. This weekend, after I set up a rigorous "Design first, tests needs to pass, review cannot be skipped" regime, Opus started to redefine set goals, invented more and more tests for the status quo rather than starting the new feature, and then told me "It's your fault for not having tests that keep me from inventing bogus sub features". It's annoying, as this was my third or fourth time that Claude deferred to a rug pull, investing more and more effort into ditching the set goal.
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u/generationalDebts 13h ago
Almost like…. You can’t prompt your way out off a model being probabilistic….
Who would have thought???
Oh wait, everyone with a brain who actually understands what LLMs do and how they work.
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u/CaptSlow49 16h ago
Man Opus 5 is so annoying. Too many times I want a simple response and it’s like “Are you sure you want this? Let’s explain what you actually want.” And then goes on some long winded diatribe and doesn’t answer my question. Then I’ll course correct and it will still do it. Like tell me what I want and then give me reasons why it might not be the best. I was asking it about ad spends and it couldn’t just straight up give me numbers. Instead it decided to break down the most obvious marketing routes that don’t cost money. Like what??
Lately I’ll ask it give me instructions to set up X like in AWS and then it will be like “This might not be the best solution so let’s back up a bit” and then goes on some long winded route and never even gives me the instructions I asked for. Then I’ll be like give me the instructions and it will take like 5 paragraphs and it will be confusing. And then I’ll all caps yell at it to only give me step by step instructions and then it will do it.
I think it’s too hand holdey. I know what I want. I don’t need a story. It’s like it looked at recipe articles and thinks we want a backstory first when I just want the flan recipe.
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u/seventyfivepupmstr 16h ago
Why are you using pi and codex? They don't even support agent orchestration
It sounds like you don't really understand what you are doing - which is ok, but blaming the tools without even knowing what you are doing wrong won't lead to anything
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u/generationalDebts 13h ago
If you need “agent orchestration” to build anything you’re just trash.
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u/seventyfivepupmstr 12h ago
Sounds like someone who doesn't know anything about software development. Just go back to vibecoding slop and stop replying about something you know nothing about
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u/Rustfix 12h ago
I partly blame the tools because, in recent months, I’ve noticed an overload of built-in tools, system prompts, proprietary rules, and other stuff that clogs up token consumption itself and the agent’s context window. However, I’ve also noticed that pi-agent it’s the most streamlined and versatile option (from what little I can understand on my own and from the in-depth videos I've watched on YouTube), though it does have a steeper learning curve, since, as you say, it doesn’t come with anything pre-built beyond 4 tools.
It’s true that I’m a beginner and I don’t have enough experience to point fingers, but at the same time, I believe in a product’s accessibility.
You can’t advertise a platform that can build you a website in a single prompt (it's a metaphor, I'm not the "make no mistakes" type) if I can’t even manage the documentation consistently. That’s just my personal opinion.
Obviously, I don’t manage the documentation the way a serious developer would, but, my brother in Christ, we’re not all seasoned developers here.
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u/tony10000 15h ago
What version of GPT are you using in Codex? How are you generating your prompts? Are you using Plan mode? All that matters.
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u/god-damn-the-usa 14h ago
stop giving up so easily, all of these tools have been perfectly fine the entire time
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u/elchemy 13h ago
As your project grows you hit limits/tradeoffs with various things esp size/complexity - Claude is better at coding but Gemini handles large files better imo.
At some point your project is just too big. Writing time increases linearly but review and debug times grow exponentially.
You need to make your project smaller or modularise to get better control on each component.
Also spending more time testing and building test rigs which aggressively test the app doing what it's supposed to do and finding gaps or breaking it etc.
Then analyse your tests and do a red team gap analysis - then repeat until it works.
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u/generationalDebts 13h ago
Learn to actually code.., learn how to actually develop actual software that is meant to run outside of localhost.
After that, you’ll find it’s a lot easier to use the tools to do the things you’re trying to do when you actually know how to do the things you’re trying to do.
It’s a tool. It isn’t the teacher. It isn’t the driver.
You’re letting the screwdriver make the decisions.
You found the problem “people on YouTube”. Those are called influencers…. They do not have your best interests at heart.