Mastodawn

⭐️ Had a lot of questions on & offline about how I start a new project using Codex, so here is what I do every time:

• I create a new iOS -> Universal App (Basic) using this Xcode template: https://github.com/steventroughtonsmith/appleuniversal-xctemplates
• I add my AppleUniversalCore package: https://github.com/steventroughtonsmith/appleuniversalcore
• I drop in the latest version of my CodingStyle.md: https://gist.github.com/steventroughtonsmith/ee58b8c7fe6557a073ac792bcb891267

And then the starter prompt, some variation of:

"Please read the CodingStyle document here, and familiarize yourself with the project structure"

Show thread

Steve Troughton-Smith Mar 10

Also as of the time of writing, I'm using the GPT-5.3-Codex model at Medium, for everything, and my model tone set to Pragmatic (instead of Friendly).

I did not have a great experience with GPT-5.4 and I don't recommend it (it's not a model specific to coding anyway) — it would rather discuss things with you, like ChatGPT, than write code, and it really frustrated me. It might work for you.

Show thread

sclyde Mar 10

@stroughtonsmith It's curious that you've had bad luck with 5.4. While not code-specific like Codex models, 5.4 incorporates all of the coding capabilities of 5.3-codex. That said, the non-specific nature of it could be messing up results in certain scenarios.

So far I haven’t had any worse luck with it than 5.3-codex. The fast-mode is a notably welcome change in 5.4. I've also been really impressed with the results when using it within the Codex app.

Show thread

Steve Troughton-Smith Mar 10

@sclyde yeah it really likes to talk, and it will argue back more. I didn't find it produced any better code than before, I did waste a lot more time trying to get it to write what I wanted, and it still had to automatically compact context just as often as before, even with a 1M token window, so I found no benefit to using it. If a GPT-5.4-Codex model comes out, I'll try that

Show thread

sclyde Mar 10

@stroughtonsmith Interesting... are you using it from the ChatGPT app, or the Codex app, or Copilot or something else? And for sure in Agent mode, not Ask or Plan?

Admittedly, 5.2 had the same issue (for me) until they released 5.2 Codex.

Show thread

Steve Troughton-Smith

@sclyde Codex app; no slash commands