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  throwaway219450
  Astra writes well (which is why I often like to work with it over Claude), but it tends to produce code golf that's borderline unreadable, like completely omitting line breaks. I thought I had something funky with my config, but it seems to be a known issue.https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/9/7/astra-why/EDIT: You can search for "tenobrus astra" on X, but link removed.The generated code certainly does what's asked of it, but it's as sloppy as anything else I've seen. I don't think this benchmark can control for that. Maybe if it had a metric for minimum diff to satisfy the new requirement with the existing constraints on dead code etc?
• taspeotis
  It's Opus specific, but personally I'd never bother with Opus above High, CursorBench shows a clear inflection: https://cursor.com/cursorbench
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  hedgehog
  Is there a reasonable way to run a representative subset myself?Edit:> For folks who want to try to repro these findings: I used the pinned v1.0 catalog, the stock just-solve prompt, seed 42, the any-case runner pass policy, and Docker with Python 3.12 and uv.And https://github.com/gabeorlanski/scb-problems/
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  drivebyhooting
  First of all, what happened to Max and Ultra?Secondly, I’m mostly using Astra Ultra or Sol 6.1 when tight on quota. I pay $200/month and rarely if ever run out. Am I doing something wrong? Or perhaps I’m not that productive as you guys?
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  WASDx
  Great benchmark!I believe effort can mean both "solve harder problems" and "produce more stuff". I mostly don't want more stuff than I asked for, so a capable model at lower effort can indeed be the wiser choice. Faster response too.
• furyofantares
  For most things I find medium to be the highest quality output. However if I want it to do spatial reasoning or if I want it be funny / write something (not code) of almost-passable quality, then xhigh is where it's at.
• jwpapi
  Very interesting. If I’m honest with myself it could be very much a reality that I would be better off in only using for medium effor size tasked instead of trying to "offload" the necessary architecture thinking to "high" or even more.They are good for inspiration though, but maybe I rather let me build a demo and then tell a medium model what I want from it.
• theodorewiles
  I have a simplify skill built from a rich hickey talk that basically solves the erosion and verbosity metrics SCB flagged (i.e. erosion and verbosity are way better and improve over time). However, after running the SCB benchmark I cannot find any evidence that it actually improves test pass rate trajectories. Food for thought on maintainability metrics.
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  softwaredoug
  IMO slop usually comes from overly defensive programming from LLMs. They’re loath to remove code and simplify, because unless we humans tell them some code / use case is unimportant, they have no reason to not care about it.So agents can make these overly complex solutions trying to make bulletproof implementations and prevent regressions.It requires a human to look at code, ask about complexity, and guide simplification by subtracting requirements implicit in the code.
• mordae
  This is interesting. Is nobody training LLMs to repeat resolving issues by patches from real projects where refactoring is required, judging the refactor similarity and not just tests passing?
• xlayn
  what are the odds of as purely side effect of benchmaxing that the models get actually good because the benchmarkers the nittier they get the better the model has to become?corrolary: just as cars evolved for worst because they were measured for "race numbers", what are the odds that the models just become "that uber nerd that degrades anyone who doesn't follow all his uber-rules for uber-code" and in the process start creating code that cannot be read or maintained?
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  giancarlostoro
  GPT 5.5 on Medium is all I use lately, I don't understand why anyone would pay drastically more for slightly more, when Opus has been good enough for a year now to do most things.
• anon
  undefined
• foota
  Wouldn't it be better to enforce pass via the harness and then measure cost/quality since that's more what people are likely to do?
• dang
  Related. Others?Benchmarking Opus 5 on SlopCodeBench - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49076391 - July 2026 (119 comments)
• meffmadd
  Are the raw outputs published somewhere?I am currently investigating SCB results and a larger, more representative dataset to work on would be really helpful!
• jdthedisciple
  Finally a serious benchmark!
• eivindmeyer
  why measure something you can just enforce with something like opcore which we have built? https://github.com/the-open-engine/opcore/
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  juleiie
  Opus did better on medium? Can anyone confirm this somehow? What’s the sweetspot in your opinion?
• slopinthebag
  not suprising. i think we also tend to do better at things when we only expend medium effort.
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  Onavo
  I wish a company named human layer won't write their reports with so much Claudisms.
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  cute_boi
  The irony is the article is very sloppy. Can we at least write it and review it properly..
• babaliauskas
  [flagged]
• anon
  undefined
• sick_of_slop
  [dead]