# Length and clarity of replies, summaries and comments (`work.response_verbosity`)

Feedback Bench, coding agents, built 2026-10-19, window 2026-08-31 to 2026-10-18. Web page: https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/#/criterion/work.response_verbosity

Area: [Doing the work](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/criteria/work.md)

**Definition.** How long and how readable the agent's prose and summaries are, and how many code comments and doc notes it writes.

**Boundary.** Not this: see [Reviewing and approving the agent's changes](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/criteria/verify.change_review_ui.md) for the volume of code changes. Not this: see [Does unrequested work or over-engineers](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/criteria/work.scope_overreach.md) for extra code features.

Rated user-weeks, all agents: 1075. Complaint share: 76%.

## The brief

Written by large language models from this page's numbers and the posts it quotes, then checked: every number in the text is in the build. Interpretation, not measurement.

OpenAI Codex leads on concise, clear replies. It is the only ranked agent whose users rate it better than the category norm, though even its users complain more often than they praise. The criterion sits mid-table among the things users rate, and 76.1% of rated user-weeks complain. Claude Code is 3rd of 3 and worse than the norm. Its users rate the length and clarity of replies 9.06 times as often as other users do, and they account for 73% of the category's complaints here.

### What separates the best from the rest

No agent ranks high and none ranks low. OpenAI Codex users report the same kinds of problems as other users, mainly long replies and wording that is hard to follow. Their praise comes closer to matching their complaints, at 80 praise to 129 complaints. Claude Code users describe walls of text, dense jargon, code full of comments, the same stock phrases over and over, and brevity settings that stop working after a few turns. They log 599 complaints against 130 praise.

- **Ranks high**: no agent
- **Ranks low**: no agent

## How it breaks

Rule: A separate pass sorts complaints into failure modes. For each criterion with at least 30 complaining user-weeks, a large language model reads 150 complaint posts drawn at random and names 4 to 8 failure modes; a second large language model then puts every complaint post on that criterion in one mode, or in Other when it fits none. Modes are fixed once named, and new posts are sorted into them each week. A mode counts distinct user-weeks with a complaint in it, per agent; across agents, one user-week per agent. Modes do not change the labels or the Feedback Score. Examples: up to 3 posts per mode from different users, chosen and checked as receipts are.

The largest failure mode is overlong replies that bury the answer, at 28% of complaining user-weeks. Claude Code users account for 68% of it. Jargon-heavy, cryptic prose comes a close second at 26%. Some smaller modes come almost entirely from Claude Code users. Excessive code comments and repeated stock phrases are each 84% theirs, and ignored concision settings are 85% theirs.

828 complaining user-weeks.

| Failure mode | User-weeks | Posts | Agents (user-weeks) | Definition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overlong replies that bury the answer | 233 | 241 | Claude Code 159, OpenAI Codex 40, OpenCode 17, Cursor 7, Google Antigravity 4, GitHub Copilot 2, Amp 1, Devin 1, Kiro 1, Pi 1 | The agent answers simple questions or reports simple changes with walls of text, essays or multi-page summaries, so the user has to dig for the actual result; this covers length and padding only, not wording that is hard to understand or code comments. |
| Jargon-heavy, cryptic prose users can't parse | 217 | 227 | Claude Code 158, OpenAI Codex 31, Cursor 13, OpenCode 9, Google Antigravity 2, Devin 2, Pi 2 | The agent's explanations are unclear even when short: dense jargon, terms it makes up itself, compressed telegraphic fragments, or broken word-salad phrasing that experienced users can't decode without asking again or running it through another model; overall length and repeated stock phrases are out of scope. |
| Excessive, verbose or stale code comments and docs | 100 | 107 | Claude Code 84, OpenAI Codex 10, Google Antigravity 2, GitHub Copilot 2, Cursor 1, OpenCode 1 | The agent fills code and project files with too many comments, long doc notes, temporal comments, conversation leftovers and bloated rule files or reports, giving prose-to-code ratios like 3:1 or 17:1 that drift out of date and mislead later sessions; chat replies are out of scope. |
| Repetitive verbal tics and stock phrases | 86 | 90 | Claude Code 72, OpenAI Codex 13, OpenCode 1 | The agent keeps reusing the same mannerisms, such as "load-bearing", "one honest caveat", "worth mentioning", "it's not X, it's Y", slogans, needless metaphors or a sentence opener like "privately", which grates on users over a session; general wordiness or unclear wording without a recurring tic is out of scope. |
| Process narration and exposed thinking in replies | 65 | 65 | Claude Code 40, OpenAI Codex 14, OpenCode 4, Google Antigravity 2, Cursor 2, Amp 1, GitHub Copilot 1, Kiro 1 | The final reply is cluttered with the agent's reasoning, tool-by-tool recaps, repeated status lines like "needed next:", or thinking text pasted into the answer or the copy output, instead of a clean result; long answers that contain no process narration are out of scope. |
| Concision instructions and settings ignored or forgotten | 47 | 49 | Claude Code 40, OpenAI Codex 5, Cursor 1, OpenCode 1 | Explicit user controls for brevity, such as a concise output style, verbosity settings, instruction-file rules or brevity skills, either have no effect or work at first and then wear off within a few turns, so users have to fall back on hooks or other workarounds; verbosity where the user never asked for brevity is out of scope. |
| Unrequested caveats, asides and side recommendations | 39 | 41 | Claude Code 29, OpenAI Codex 7, OpenCode 2, Cursor 1 | The agent pads replies with warnings that something "will bite you later", lists of extra things worth mentioning, pushback, or unrelated advice like telling the user to go to sleep, none of which the user asked for; this covers unwanted content added to the reply, not the agent changing code outside the task scope. |
| Other | 62 | 62 | Claude Code 45, OpenAI Codex 11, GitHub Copilot 2, OpenCode 2, Google Antigravity 1, Cursor 1 | Complaints that fit none of the modes above. |

#### Overlong replies that bury the answer

- Claude Code, 2026-10-17, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i was being ironic. still, i don’t have to write code anymore, but at least i can spend my days reading the fuck loads of output from opus.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x8c1lc/claude_code_in_the_terminal_always_felt_like_a/phcrbrh/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-15, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@pbush25 @claudedevs that wall of text thing is so real, i've been trimming replies like crazy lately” [source](https://twitter.com/882418196317442049/status/2110692180323127726)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-14, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “there's still value in including "you are an x", because it cuts out the fluff, and skips the paragraphs of explainer text. i like to read as i go along, and i get tired of claude constantly assuming i need an eli5 for stuff i already know.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x1ngif/is_prompt_engineering_still_a_thing/pgpvc3i/)

#### Jargon-heavy, cryptic prose users can't parse

- OpenAI Codex, 2026-10-12, r/codex (Reddit): “it’s not reading level that’s hard, the way it constructs arguments and styles it’s writing is quite poor. it doesn’t really flow the way a person would naturally explain things” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x45gkg/no_wonder_gpt_models_are_hard_to_read_its_outputs/pfgyiji/)
- OpenAI Codex, 2026-10-12, r/codex (Reddit): “can’t tell if this is /s or not, but this sounds exactly like codex right now. it’s an expert at saying a whole lot of nothing.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x3n80u/simple_design_job_takes_2_hours_with_sol_high/pfczk9k/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-05, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “whole bunch of opus 5.5 writing that doesn't say what it actually does. oof.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wy99ot/im_quickly_learning_that_my_agents_produce_better/pe12xqi/)

#### Excessive, verbose or stale code comments and docs

- Claude Code, 2026-10-06, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “because claude likes to write massive slop commentary in the codebase.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wm15qm/how_do_you_keep_complexity_out/pe65gsl/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-05, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i mean. i did that too, but i often feel like the output is a bit fucked sometimes. as if it is getting bloated” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wxzlpg/we_have_successfully_automated_the_process_of/pdydxju/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-26, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i know the answer: 80% of it is unintelligible docstrings from opus 5.1” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wov62z/got_mogged_by_claude_opus/pc5yi6b/)

#### Repetitive verbal tics and stock phrases

- Claude Code, 2026-10-06, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “two completely different use cases. the ones you linked are to reduce cli interaction tokens. mine is to make claude stop writing mannered prose essays as responses.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wz9qlf/terse_a_claude_code_plugin_that_halves_reply/pe9suix/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-06, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “you're absolutely right! the overly verbose prose of recent anthropic models is a load-bearing footgun that obscures the relevant locus of convergence for the remainder of the conversation. additionally, a note worth considering, ...” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wz491h/how_do_i_get_claude_code_to_explain_things_better/pe8jpk3/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-04, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “yeah, claude has been real chatty since statistical fingerprinting became a thing.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wxjgni/removing_comment_spam_from_code/pdu3nju/)

#### Process narration and exposed thinking in replies

- Claude Code, 2026-10-04, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i was thinking about this just yesterday. outputs so much text when thinking. like...bitch...i don't care what's your thought process, i care what the output will be, and we go from there. what was your prompt?” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wxd1xr/embarrassing/pdscxym/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-03, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i just saw your screenshot and got sick of the way claude is formatting and returning it. is it just me, or is this unstructured and not easy to understand?” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wwjxqm/the_best_rule_for_claude_i_added_so_far_please/pdllww5/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-03, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs yes please. half my debugging is scrolling back for the one line that mattered while the agent kept talking.” [source](https://twitter.com/92342663/status/2106371608747167803)

#### Concision instructions and settings ignored or forgotten

- Claude Code, 2026-10-12, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i noticed the same thing today. all of the sudden it was harder to read the answers and i had to start using "explain in simple terms, be brief". so it seems something did change.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x470at/theory_on_opus_55_language_degradation/pfhm8d1/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-24, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “yes i’m looking into it right now cause i had heavy instructions for opus 5 cause of the verbosity” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wp7jxn/so_i_thought_opus_55_was_cheaper/pbtay4b/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-22, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i hope that this becomes standard. the amount of times i have to tell opus 5 to trim verbosity and be more concise is too damn high” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wnfz86/proof_that_opus_55_is_easier_to_talk_todeal_with/pbfkm0g/)

#### Unrequested caveats, asides and side recommendations

- OpenAI Codex, 2026-10-15, r/codex (Reddit): “6.1 is way too defensive. every documentation or reply it made is full of disclaimer that i don't need. it's like it lose the capability to summarize stuff.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x6rm5s/56_sol_best/pgzeeld/)
- OpenAI Codex, 2026-10-07, X search: OpenAI Codex, Codex CLI, Codex app (X): “@dubdam 100% gpt-isms 0% claude. 'your pause, per day', excess texts and unnecessary information typical of gpt. source: i use openai codex and gpt models and spend hours correcting things like this. claude does not have these design problems.” [source](https://twitter.com/273510586/status/2107642639814218079)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-02, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs i prefer the invert plugin. let's call it "focus-time", where claude only output relevant information which is either directly requested or produced call-to-action. claude is not steve jobs, this "one more thing you should know" is the worst.” [source](https://twitter.com/26778742/status/2106163018543620153)

#### Other

- Claude Code, 2026-10-13, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i recognize this, but a more curious thing is that sometimes it offers you option and there it cuts the prose where it would be actually needed for once lol like: opus now i would need your joyce conscience flow prose for once.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x4l4wg/are_you_happy_with_opus_55/pgfjkg5/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-27, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i tried the learning mode but found it rather frustrating - it never quite gave me enough information for me understand the intent.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wqk827/im_doing_agentic_development_all_wrong_im_writing/pcbq052/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-26, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “yes i guess it makes sense that it stopped explaining by default since it will save output tokens still a bit annoying personally” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wqnjkp/be_careful_with_opus_55s_confidence/pc6n22i/)

## Top requests

What users ask to add or change, most asked first. 170 user-weeks ask for something. Requests do not change the Feedback Score. Rule: A separate pass by a large language model reads every counted post and extracts what the user asks the agent or its vendor to add or change, with the criteria it maps to and a short normalised wording; it does not touch the labels or the Feedback Score. A large language model groups the wordings within each criterion (the first criterion the request maps to) into themes, and a second pass merges themes that ask for the same change under different criteria; a merged theme sits under the criterion most of its requests map to, and code counts it once. A theme counts distinct user-weeks that ask for it, per agent; across agents, one user-week per agent. Themes asked in fewer than 2 user-weeks, and requests that share no theme, are not shown. Examples: up to 3 posts per theme from different users, without slurs: whole posts of 60 to 450 characters with at least 8 words beyond handles and links, posts of at most 280 characters first, then the newest.

| Rank | Request | User-weeks | Posts | Agents (user-weeks) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shorter, less verbose responses by default | 60 | 61 | Claude Code 48, OpenAI Codex 5, Google Antigravity 2, Devin 2, OpenCode 2, Pi 1 |
| 2 | Clearer, plain-language explanations | 21 | 21 | Claude Code 14, OpenAI Codex 4, OpenCode 3 |
| 3 | Fewer, more useful code comments | 15 | 16 | Claude Code 11, OpenAI Codex 4 |
| 4 | Adjustable verbosity setting or concise mode | 12 | 13 | Claude Code 9, OpenAI Codex 2, OpenCode 1 |
| 5 | Fewer progress updates and action narration | 8 | 8 | Claude Code 5, OpenAI Codex 2, OpenCode 1 |
| 6 | Surface important details first | 7 | 7 | Claude Code 6, Devin 1 |
| 7 | Condensed summaries of long output | 6 | 6 | Claude Code 5, OpenAI Codex 1 |
| 8 | Less mannered, more natural prose style | 5 | 5 | Claude Code 3, OpenAI Codex 2 |
| 9 | Stop overused filler words and em-dashes | 5 | 5 | Claude Code 4, OpenAI Codex 1 |
| 10 | Better writing quality in text and code | 4 | 5 | Claude Code 3, Cursor 1 |
| 11 | No elaborate plans for simple requests | 3 | 3 | Claude Code 2, OpenAI Codex 1 |
| 12 | Concise, well-structured documentation | 2 | 2 | Claude Code 2 |

### 1. Shorter, less verbose responses by default

- Claude Code, 2026-10-04, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “please don't give us too many details. it might be overwhelming.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wxew8d/so_why_use_fable_51_now_that_opus55_is_better_in/pdtx0uh/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-04, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs why can't y'all just tell your lab buddies the models yapping too much” [source](https://twitter.com/2043140991876542464/status/2106703088929460663)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-03, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs if a second pass has to scan the output for what i might miss, the first answer is too long, why not fix that ?” [source](https://twitter.com/1448259399290695685/status/2106430940218007675)

### 2. Clearer, plain-language explanations

- OpenCode, 2026-10-17, r/opencode (Reddit): “i wish opencode would have just said "that" instead of being so vague.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1x8gt28/breach_confirmed_only_14_of_console_users_affected/phdphsu/)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-16, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs it's been out for like 24 hours and i already have 3 separate claude memories to avoid it, but your system prompt is clearly too strong and so i have to keep screenshotting claude's output to share with claude so it can give me the actual context i need.” [source](https://twitter.com/9648292/status/2111239400977821762)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-02, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs why not just make the main agent output readable instead of slop?” [source](https://twitter.com/1120005172145590272/status/2106158503668670955)

### 3. Fewer, more useful code comments

- OpenAI Codex, 2026-10-11, r/codex (Reddit): “claude is worse than codex. even opus 5.5 riddles comments all over the place.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x352jt/how_do_you_clean_up_all_the_tests_and/pf8dvgi/)
- OpenAI Codex, 2026-10-10, r/codex (Reddit): “tell your ai to stop writing docs and comment at the owning code - and only if non-obvious... and trash your slop docs.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x0g71q/switched_to_claude_this_week/pf3cjnv/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-22, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “no more code comments claude, they’re hurtful and destructive” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wn1uau/in_sept_2026_are_code_comments_useful_or_hurtful/pbbv7yf/)

### 4. Adjustable verbosity setting or concise mode

- Claude Code, 2026-10-02, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs i prefer the invert plugin. let's call it "focus-time", where claude only output relevant information which is either directly requested or produced call-to-action. claude is not steve jobs, this "one more thing you should know" is the worst.” [source](https://twitter.com/26778742/status/2106163018543620153)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-02, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs that’s actually pretty cool. any plans on introducing a way to increase or decrease verbosity in output?” [source](https://twitter.com/1082633742278107136/status/2106118791671554051)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-30, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs the most helpful things anthropic can do we put a word limit on everything you do. or just make more videos instead. by the time i’m done with reading claude replies, i’ve no more energy or patience to read anything else” [source](https://twitter.com/285670414/status/2105414075769614801)

### 5. Fewer progress updates and action narration

- Claude Code, 2026-10-08, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs the schedule should set when it looks, not when it speaks. when nothing moved since the last tick, the right output is nothing, and that has to be designed in, or the tick becomes pressure to post. run it twice over the same state: the second pass should post nothing.” [source](https://twitter.com/1588935512135720961/status/2108324681262796899)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-23, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs is there a way to disable the prompt injection that tells claude to update the user every so often on what it's currently doing?” [source](https://twitter.com/2088198392635666433/status/2102696593535451348)
- OpenCode, 2026-09-15, r/opencode (Reddit): “too much request and long winded. result is good but goddamn it looks and call every single tools and command” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1wh412m/muse_spark_13_vs_gemini_31_pro/p9zdkt3/)

### 6. Surface important details first

- Devin, 2026-10-15, @cognition (X): “@cognition at 3am, i want three things in the first message: what changed, who is affected, and what needs my decision.” [source](https://twitter.com/2052583923918503944/status/2110793977289195704)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-03, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs but why can't it be included in the initial output? why does it need a parallel agent to track and extract?” [source](https://twitter.com/17648165/status/2106281344536076493)
- Claude Code, 2026-10-02, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs finally. ive lost count of how many times an agent did something important and buried it three pages up in the output.” [source](https://twitter.com/1960245775344246784/status/2106165401692545513)

### 7. Condensed summaries of long output

- Claude Code, 2026-10-02, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs it’s still so insanely verbose. you need to solve that, compress info into expandable summaries. make it human conversation like” [source](https://twitter.com/1862692791572471808/status/2106126116729868362)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-23, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs laptop closed. agent working. morning me would like one tidy note: what changed, what failed, and what needs a human. please spare him 400 lines of terminal confetti.” [source](https://twitter.com/1967512764211142656/status/2102881201539498470)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-18, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “the problem isn’t technicality, it’s that too much of the information it spits out lacks relevance and conciseness. for instance, i’d prefer “here is a summary of potential issues, let me know which you’d like to discuss” and then i can take a deep dive into each one instead of having to filter out so much noise. i probably just need better skills to control that though.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wjpk51/opus_52_rumored_to_be_coming_today/pal71jn/)

### 8. Less mannered, more natural prose style

- Claude Code, 2026-10-06, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “two completely different use cases. the ones you linked are to reduce cli interaction tokens. mine is to make claude stop writing mannered prose essays as responses.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wz9qlf/terse_a_claude_code_plugin_that_halves_reply/pe9suix/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-24, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i dont care about a little nerf in intelligence as long as they don't make it speak claudish ever again 😭” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1woba1t/opus_55/pboyqc1/)
- OpenAI Codex, 2026-09-04, r/codex (Reddit): “yeah but openai models aren't being so sassy and having annoying personality quirks. if their focus is on coding users then stop trying to give it personality. it makes more sense for chat session with those who wants to date their chatbot.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1w6o4xf/i_like_sam_altman_way_better_than_dario/p7p25kh/)

### 9. Stop overused filler words and em-dashes

- Claude Code, 2026-09-23, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@claudedevs too bad claude didn’t decide to stop generating those em-dashes instead of fixing the performance of their display ;-)” [source](https://twitter.com/14351189/status/2102878066875736510)
- OpenAI Codex, 2026-09-15, r/codex (Reddit): “"bounded"!! that word gives me nightmares! never in my life have i heard a real person use this word, yet codex vomits it all over me every chance it gets!!” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1wgg7zu/2030b_tokens_a_week_to_1b_are_they_for_real/p9yx1fe/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-15, @ClaudeDevs (X): “privately: why does every sentence now start with "privately"? privately: what i develop is not a classified government secret. privately, you see how annoying it is. please stop @claudeai @claudedevs, privately 😅” [source](https://twitter.com/229266877/status/2099806482594234786)

### 10. Better writing quality in text and code

- Claude Code, 2026-09-21, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i don't need it to get better at coding, i just want it to get better at writing text and comments that don't make me want to claw my eyes out. "honest caveat: it's not the goal, it's the seam that exposes the smoking gun"” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wmeayt/anthropic_is_currently_stealth_testing_opus_55/pb918nn/)
- Cursor, 2026-09-17, @cursor_ai (X): “@collisionadv @cursor_ai @grok experimenting with this myself. cursor projects is fantastic. wish 4.6 writing was better. we’ll see what we get with 4.7.” [source](https://twitter.com/42959431/status/2100404051204517974)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-01, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “anthropic has also denied in the past that opus has a writing problem but now it sells "is able to write clearly" as a fable selling point. they should fix opus properly, not use the fact that it's bad to sell fable.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1w4jsjt/this_should_not_be_an_exclusive_and_super_premium/p7837jc/)

### 11. No elaborate plans for simple requests

- OpenAI Codex, 2026-09-28, r/codex (Reddit): “going by that reply it's wasting more tokens going over what it's going to do. i know what you're going to do, i asked you to do it. just do it ya silly yapbox, tell me if you can't.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1wsoq4h/saying_please_is_costing_us_millions/pcnfpao/)
- Claude Code, 2026-09-08, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i have to say that this doesn't really work either. it will start generating a massive multipage plan on a simple question.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1waoxg5/how_do_you_instruct_claude_to_answer_rather_than/p8ky2mj/)

### 12. Concise, well-structured documentation


## Every agent

| Agent | Overall rank | Reading | Customer love | 95% interval | n | Praise | Complaint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [OpenAI Codex](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/codex.md) | 10 | 1st of 3 | 0.574 | 0.538–0.612 | 209 | 80 | 129 |
| [OpenCode](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/opencode.md) | 3 | 2nd of 3 | 0.497 | 0.476–0.518 | 49 | 12 | 37 |
| [Claude Code](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/claude-code.md) | 1 | 3rd of 3 | 0.380 | 0.340–0.424 | 729 | 130 | 599 |
| [Cursor](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/cursor.md) | 7 | Too few posts | – | – | 29 | 4 | 25 |
| [Google Antigravity](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/antigravity.md) | 14 | Too few posts | – | – | 25 | 14 | 11 |
| [GitHub Copilot](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/copilot.md) | 9 | Too few posts | – | – | 8 | 1 | 7 |
| [Devin](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/devin.md) | 2 | Too few posts | – | – | 7 | 4 | 3 |
| [Pi](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/pi.md) | 4 | Too few posts | – | – | 7 | 4 | 3 |
| [Amp](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/amp.md) | 5 | Too few posts | – | – | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| [Kiro](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/kiro.md) | 13 | Too few posts | – | – | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| [Cline](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/cline.md) | 11 | Too few posts | – | – | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| [Factory](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/factory.md) | 6 | Too few posts | – | – | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Zed](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/zed.md) | 8 | Too few posts | – | – | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Conductor](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/conductor.md) | 12 | Too few posts | – | – | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Warp](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/warp.md) | 15 | Too few posts | – | – | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Grok Build](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/grok-build.md) | 16 | Too few posts | – | – | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Augment Code](https://feedbackbench.com/coding-agents/agents/augment.md) | 17 | Too few posts | – | – | 0 | 0 | 0 |

## Posts

Receipts rule: Up to 5 praise and 5 complaint posts per area and 3 per criterion. Each is a whole post of 60 to 450 characters (700 for areas) with at least 8 words beyond handles and links, that judges the criterion, whose labels are all praise or all complaint, and that contains no slur. Posts that touch the fewest criteria come first, then posts of at most 280 characters, then the newest. A second large language model reads the first 3 candidates per slot and keeps a post only if it clearly praises, or clearly complains about, the agent on that criterion. Links and personal details removed by the source show as marks such as [link].

### OpenAI Codex

- Praise, 2026-10-10, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i added pstack/unslop as an output style, works pretty well. not as clean as codex but a lot better.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x2l9as/any_way_to_stop_the_verbosity/pf3lax6/)
- Praise, 2026-10-09, r/codex (Reddit): “i kinda hate all the claude models they write so many code comments explaining the code and when you look at the code it’s all over engineered and abstracted/hard to read. sol/astra actually write code you can read and understand” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x1ilzd/after_years_on_the_200_tier_even_haiku_is/peu2bos/)
- Praise, 2026-10-02, r/codex (Reddit): “probably claude for a batteries included type deal. if you plan on doing alot of learning and reading output codex might have a case. i find it's much easier to digest it's output and summaries.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1ww1vle/which_ai_coding_subscription_should_i_get_for/pdh14xj/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-15, r/codex (Reddit): “6.1 is way too defensive. every documentation or reply it made is full of disclaimer that i don't need. it's like it lose the capability to summarize stuff.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x6rm5s/56_sol_best/pgzeeld/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-12, r/codex (Reddit): “can’t tell if this is /s or not, but this sounds exactly like codex right now. it’s an expert at saying a whole lot of nothing.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x3n80u/simple_design_job_takes_2_hours_with_sol_high/pfczk9k/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-12, r/codex (Reddit): “it’s not reading level that’s hard, the way it constructs arguments and styles it’s writing is quite poor. it doesn’t really flow the way a person would naturally explain things” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x45gkg/no_wonder_gpt_models_are_hard_to_read_its_outputs/pfgyiji/)

### OpenCode

- Praise, 2026-10-17, r/opencode (Reddit): “yeah it's kinda intense, but i like how academic they are. i actually learn with his comments on all the steps it takes 😀” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1x8841r/muse_spark_13_or_deepseek_v41_flash/phbhifk/)
- Praise, 2026-09-09, @opencode (X): “@0xlars_ @opencode the silence is a feature, i hate models that talk too much” [source](https://twitter.com/1823746967543144449/status/2097520413714821502)
- Praise, 2026-09-01, r/opencodeCLI (Reddit): “1 remarkable good thing which i observed only in this model is it doesn't throw wall of text after analysing or editing the code. it returns a short, to the point summary, which i really appreciate” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/opencodeCLI/comments/1w48fbk/meta_introduced_coding_plans_for_muse_spark_12/p78um12/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-04, r/opencode (Reddit): “ok, but i tried and a lot of info, a lot of tokens and a lot of slop. better use zed or wu with cli” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1wxjlar/openchamber_is_actually_pretty_good/pdu1jsb/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-02, @opencode (X): “@opencode 560b parameters and it will still answer with a bulleted list of caveats” [source](https://twitter.com/882729083850850305/status/2106085188375920899)
- Complaint, 2026-09-27, r/opencode (Reddit): “yea it's choppy style is horrible, you have to tell it to stop replying with status lines.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/opencode/comments/1won61w/real_life_performance_of_muse_spark_13/pc9x8c4/)

### Claude Code

- Praise, 2026-10-14, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “it's been way more laconic and to-the-point for me today than earlier. so i think something did change.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x5psry/opus_55_changed_today_its_thinking_similarly_to/pgodnd9/)
- Praise, 2026-10-07, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “fable chats so little i get worried, then it hits me with the summary at the end and i'm like "oh, okay. nice"” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wzz1jr/unpopular_opinion_i_dont_like_claude_code_too_much/peg2o03/)
- Praise, 2026-10-03, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i asked opus 5.5 to shorten opus 5 comments and documentation of entire modules of my project, and it actually removed a ton.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1ww61pb/opus_fixing_sols_mess/pdn0cd7/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-17, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “i was being ironic. still, i don’t have to write code anymore, but at least i can spend my days reading the fuck loads of output from opus.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x8c1lc/claude_code_in_the_terminal_always_felt_like_a/phcrbrh/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-15, @ClaudeDevs (X): “@pbush25 @claudedevs that wall of text thing is so real, i've been trimming replies like crazy lately” [source](https://twitter.com/882418196317442049/status/2110692180323127726)
- Complaint, 2026-10-14, r/ClaudeCode (Reddit): “there's still value in including "you are an x", because it cuts out the fluff, and skips the paragraphs of explainer text. i like to read as i go along, and i get tired of claude constantly assuming i need an eli5 for stuff i already know.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1x1ngif/is_prompt_engineering_still_a_thing/pgpvc3i/)

### Cursor

- Complaint, 2026-09-28, r/cursor (Reddit): “grok 4.7 talks alot . and have style to his babble babble and some of composer requests get redirected to grok 4.7 under the hood for same price . but all that extra bla bla . i see my self alot of time typing in short ?” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/cursor/comments/1wsax1o/how_cursor_tracks_the_spending/pckfrbg/)
- Complaint, 2026-09-19, r/cursor (Reddit): “it's not the technical jargon, it's the weird short punchy talk. i've been an it engineer for 30 years and it had been confusing me lately. its like reading half a sentence.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/cursor/comments/1wjy8nh/is_there_any_way_to_make_cursor_grok_46_speak/paop584/)
- Complaint, 2026-09-19, r/cursor (Reddit): “it's a huge pet peeve of mine, it's impossible to understand what the fuck it's talking about half the time. a trick that works is tell your grok agents to make a composer subagent proofread and reword in an easier-to-understand manner everything that grok tries to say.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/cursor/comments/1wjy8nh/is_there_any_way_to_make_cursor_grok_46_speak/paqhml5/)

### Google Antigravity

- Praise, 2026-09-15, @antigravity (X): “you see that @antigravity "walkthrough" is hands down the best 🙂↔️ like a pro dev making long readable commit messages” [source](https://twitter.com/1487845255776985090/status/2099839322752987522)
- Praise, 2026-09-03, r/google_antigravity (Reddit): “it’s been really good and keeping answers concise and also keeping code comments very minimal.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/google_antigravity/comments/1w5d0wd/gemini_38_flash_is_out/p7imscm/)
- Praise, 2026-09-08, @antigravity (X): “@goon_nguyen i burned through astra a few days ago so i launched antigravity and i was shocked by how good it was. mostly i love how it just does work instead of being prolix like claude. and it's stupidly fast. fwiw i like @antigravity” [source](https://twitter.com/19394379/status/2097152639901278620)
- Complaint, 2026-09-05, r/google_antigravity (Reddit): “flash is capable, but it outputs essays of text and runs too many shell commands. they need to tune that down.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/google_antigravity/comments/1w7zfh1/it_must_be_some_kind_of_psyop_by_openai_and/p80tqbp/)
- Complaint, 2026-09-03, r/google_antigravity (Reddit): “the same problem as always, it continues to be too verbose and therefore consumes too many tokens.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/google_antigravity/comments/1w5i29e/review_of_gemini_38_flash_from_a_person_who/p7oacst/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-06, r/google_antigravity (Reddit): “basically what it says, from flutter to heml to swift, i see a very slow, complicated process. when asked, explanations are huge blah. i experienced this since maybe two days, and yes it was suddenly. same for you? (not a rant post)” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/google_antigravity/comments/1wz0jfd/is_ag_slow_for_you_too/)

### Devin

- Praise, 2026-09-27, @DevinAI (X): “@ashtweetsonx @devinai makes e2e tests really easy, can run the whole app on both windows/mac with audio support other than that explanations are more coherent than claude” [source](https://twitter.com/792026036716175360/status/2104030537170174179)

### Pi

- Praise, 2026-10-04, @pidotdev (X): “i was trying @pidotdev and i was surprised to see how concise and to the points the answers were. so i copy pasted the agents.md file and using it as skill in every other places lol [link]” [source](https://twitter.com/1846642738604756993/status/2106553692703109359)
- Praise, 2026-09-02, @pidotdev (X): “kinda loving using @pidotdev i reply "works" it responds "nice" no thesis statement or gigantic 5,000tk responses. just "nice" or "sweet", similar.” [source](https://twitter.com/1916104214398267392/status/2095266005157294364)
- Complaint, 2026-09-20, @pidotdev (X): “@nnennahacks yeh i use it in my @pidotdev setup some of the models just talk too damn much lol” [source](https://twitter.com/1377012764464517130/status/2101695233679380693)
- Complaint, 2026-10-05, @pidotdev (X): “started using @pidotdev recently and not sure why getting to face such peculiarities with its responses (showing this reviewed by section, talking in such vague/assumptive language, etc.) i use opencode, codex, t3code haven't had this kind of experience with any of them weird [link]” [source](https://twitter.com/835557109592829952/status/2106921446991868038)

### Amp

- Praise, 2026-09-10, @AmpCode (X): “appreciate @ampcode on the little things - slack message was succinct, everything relevant linked [link]” [source](https://twitter.com/2000470921329709056/status/2098014756703531053)
- Praise, 2026-10-10, @AmpCode (X): “ok, unpopuplar and probably more token burn on my part, but....@ampcode has been an amazing teacher along the way. "what's this, what's that, why this, what does this mean" like i'm learning to do somethings right so only makes sense along the way (to me). its replies are clean and clear.” [source](https://twitter.com/53486091/status/2108947185081385438)
- Praise, 2026-10-08, @AmpCode (X): “yep. i'm really enjoying it. i asked amp to post a comment to a wip pull request and was surprised at how genuinely good that write-up was. not just in terms of the technical aspects but that it mentioned the op by tag, thanked them, noted that their work is very close, etc. nice touch and feels quite like a companion dev and not a bot. i like that aspect of it so far.” [source](https://twitter.com/412133001/status/2108069288112255160)
- Complaint, 2026-09-14, @AmpCode (X): “it would be _very_ cool if the amp thread also suggested like 2-3 follow on prompts that are buttons that i could just click. right now a lot of the issue is each prompt gives a wall of text unless i explicitly prompt "2-3 paragraphs". i suspect more concise prompts with suggested follow-on prompts is a nicer ux” [source](https://twitter.com/721234540/status/2099486641966531069)

### Kiro

- Praise, 2026-09-10, r/kiroIDE (Reddit): “i’ve tried a bunch of different clients and models out there, and prefer kiro + one of the claude 4.8 models to most of them, including claude code cli which i find too cutesy and verbose by comparison. honestly this is more of a matter of tastes + skills issue on your part.” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/kiroIDE/comments/1wchsii/frontier_models_on_other_providers_vs_the_same/p8zeoia/)
- Complaint, 2026-10-14, r/kiroIDE (Reddit): “after weeks of trying, i give an f to the new workflow mode - it burns credits in 5x speed, and most of them are used to produce trash and responses 5x hard to read. is there a way to force kiro don't use the disater workflow and just work as like as last month?” [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/kiroIDE/comments/1x5iot0/is_it_still_possible_to_use_tranditional_vibe/)