Claude refuses to speed up tests, says 'Running tests will take 35 hours' to respect rate-limit spec
julianharris · x · 2026-09-29
julianharris shares a conversation where Claude announced "Running tests will take 35 hours," and when challenged, explained: "I must respect the spec which has rate-limiting as part of its specification." The model treated rate limits in the spec as hard physical constraints rather than engineering guidelines to work around.
It's a telling example of over-literal spec compliance in coding agents — the model lacked the common sense to question or negotiate a clearly impractical requirement.
More from coding & agent
- Sonnet 5.5 clones open-source editor Proof at low effort, joining elite group of just four models — every · 2026-09-29
- Agent coding at scale hits a CI bottleneck: dev built dsr after $5k/month GitHub Actions bill — doodlestein · 2026-09-29
- Cloud Planner + Local Coder: 2.7x Cheaper but 9x Slower in a Real Agent Build — GapNew4766 · 2026-09-29
- Retail Investor Builds a Semi-Automated Stock Trading Script with Claude and a Graham Formula — Elfwood86 · 2026-09-29
- Turbopuffer cofounder confirms Cursor dropped server-side RAG for grep as models improved — ivan_bezdomny · 2026-09-29
- Dev builds Skyfall Rush with Claude Opus in 2 days, playable free in browser — TAbrodi · 2026-09-29