OpenAI Codex Effort Mode: Experience and Complaints
CuriousCockatiels · reddit · 2026-07-17
The author shared their 3-day experience with OpenAI Codex, focusing on the design flaws of its "Effort Mode":
- Low Effort Mode: Prone to making basic errors with complex code, failing to check for potential failure states, leading to multiple runs.
- High Effort Mode: Wastes several minutes on unnecessary fixes like lint checks even for simple character replacements (e.g., changing Apple to Orange).
The author questions why OpenAI opted for manual effort settings instead of developing an intelligent "auto mode"—letting AI assess request complexity first and automatically allocating compute and time. Despite being baffled by this design, the author highly praises Codex, calling it a "Star Trek" experience, and commends OpenAI's recent model performance.
Related event: OpenAI Codex Effort Mode Criticized(2 posts)→
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