Agentic coding workflows

[HISEnberg]

I finally had a chance to dig into the new setup this week and my head is still spinning with the possibilities. I agree with Christoph that there is something almost uncanny about Opus 4.6 (I'd add Sonnet 4.6 which I use for most tasks) when it comes to writing Hisescript and editing the source code. Next best models which I find produce useful enough results are GPT-5.4, and Gemini's new multimodal embedding model has piqued my interest as well.

It's still early days of trying out different workflows but what does everyone's setup look like currently? Are you still using the HISE script editor or do you find working out of a separate IDE more convenient at this point? I've been using Visual Studio for the most part launching Claude Code or Codex in Terminal. Admittedly, I still find HISE script editor too useful to completely separate with it...

On another, note how are you all getting along with specific HISE projects at this stage? One thing I am noticing is how much more aggressive Claude code can be on token usage if you don't prompt and direct it right. Previously I would consolidate all necessary information (Scripts, xmls, Dsp Files, scope of work, bug checklist, etc.) along with specific examples, API documentation, or source code from HISE, and create a new project with an LLM. This seems to have the added benefit of keeping the model more focused, faster, use less resources, and most importantly, retain memory. The main drawbacks are lack of project/HISE context and lack of writing to project.

So the MCP server approach does allow for read/write to the project and clearly performs significantly better, but requires careful prompting and project context to avoid significant token usage. Figuring out the right balance between comprehensive context and efficiency is the real challenge for me moving forward. I imagine this just boils down to reformatting my setup to include the right sort of skill, tools and spawning subagents in the right context.

I'll have to try out opencode as Chrsitoph suggests and using this to make edits to the HISE source code are next on my bucket list as well!

[Christoph Hart]

@HISEnberg I'm trying to optimize the MCP server for token usage and it's highly more efficient than a web search of eg. the HISE docs - eg. the current scripting API enrichment pipeline that maxes out my 200$ claude max subscription within a few days creates a highly concise LLM summary for each class that strips all the fillers that humans need to parse text.

The MCP resources are also structured in a nested hierarchy - so there is a general coding style doc, a coding style documentation for LAF / ScriptPanels, etc. and you can instruct the LLM to only pull in the resource it needs for the job.

Are you still using the HISE script editor or do you find working out of a separate IDE more convenient at this point?

Funnily the side-effect of writing a LSP server that the LLMs can use to lint HiseScript was that vibecoding a VS-Code extension is pretty trivial - it can just reuse the same logic and all the heavy lifting (shadow parsing - multi-error diagnostics etc) is already implemented. As much as I love my little code editor in HISE, I think its days are numbered - it's just too tempting to pull in the industry standard code editors and the missing runtime inspection and integration with HISE was the only thing holding it back.

I'm currently also toying around with a TUI interface that connects to HISE with a REPL - from there you can just do stuff like :switch_project MyProject or builder add SineGenerator to Container - same concept: stuff that the LLM can use to remote control HISE can also be packaged into a nice experience for the human.

[David Healey]

@HISEnberg said in Agentic coding workflows:

Are you still using the HISE script editor

I'm still writing HISE script myself in the script editor. Other than complex look and feel and DSP I haven't found anywhere in my workflow where I think handing off the scripting to AI would help me. What kind of tasks are you using it for with regard to HISE script?

[DanH]

@David-Healey I prefer writing script I know how to write in general. Quicker than ai at the moment...

[dannytaurus]

@Lindon It'll be a continually evolving world for quite a while I think.

You might know all this already but...

There are 2 main choices to make - the coding environment and the AI model that you use within that coding environment.

My preferred coding environment was always an IDE like VSCode, so Cursor, which is a VSCode port, was my obvious first step into this. But lately I've been trying the terminal-based Claude Code, where you don't get tabs with open files or a directory tree, etc. You just get chats and code diffs in one continual terminal window.

If you prefer and IDE try Cursor or Zed (David mentioned it, looks good). The advantage of Cursor is that it comes with the Claude model "built-in", so you don't have to set up API keys etc to get going. Another Cursor bonus is that it seems to absorb some of the AI model cost from your usage. Not sure how that will pan out in time. They can't keep doing that.

Another benefit of using an IDE over a terminal-based approach is that the IDEs keep a chat history of all your work. Meaning in Cursor, I can go back to any historical chat and just keep working on that same task without having to relearn all the context. As far as I know, terminal-based approaches like Claude Code can't do that. When you finish the task and close the terminal tab/window, all the history is gone. You're just left with the resulting code. Personally, I go back and carry on work in previous chats all the time, so I need an environment that allows this.

For the AI models, it sounds like Christoph is pretty set on Claude Opus 4.6 (an Anthropic model) but I've had decent results with the faster and cheaper (meaning not as thorough) Claude Sonnet 4.6 (also Anthropic). I also just had a couple of good Ruby coding sessions with GPT-5.4 (an OpenAI model) so that's another option.

The models are advancing all the time and some models are better for some tasks than others. But unless you want 3 or more AI subscriptions, you're probably better off paying for one that has a decent range mod models. For me, so far, this is paying $20/mo for Cursor so I can access the "built-in" Opus and Sonnet. And even sometimes Haiku (super fast and simple) for non-coding things like writing emails or support docs.

I also pay $20/mo to OpenAI for ChatGPT but now I'm trying out the Codex coding environment that all works within the same $20/mo subscription.

I don't feel like I've simplified anything at all here but it might be useful info for someone cruising by this post

[David Healey]

@DanH I'm finding AI is very useful for editing HISE itself because the HISE codebase is massive and sometimes 80% of the work is just finding the place where you want to make an edit, while actually writing the code isn't too complicated. Although sometimes it's complicated so the AI helps there too.

But with HISE script I don't really have to do anything complex and my codebase is small, so I find it very fast to just write the script myself.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey It will probably be useful for refactoring and moving things into namespaces. I'm on a short HISE-atus (see what I did there) at the moment but I'm gagging to get back into it now we have the MCP stuff set up.

The future is leaning back in my chair with a cup of tea casually throwing out commands like "now add an effects section on the right with a Juno-style chorus and an authentic BBD-style delay, and wire them both up to XY pads with, I don't know, you choose the parameters."

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Agentic coding workflows:

terminal-based approaches like Claude Code can't do that. When you finish the task and close the terminal tab/window, all the history is gone.

Does it not save it for you to view in the web version?

@dannytaurus said in Agentic coding workflows:

I also pay $20/mo to OpenAI for ChatGPT but now I'm trying out the Codex coding environment that all works within the same $20/mo subscription.

How do the Codex models compare to Sonnet (that's the main one I'm using)? And does it have usage limits like Claude (resets every 5 hours/week)?

@dannytaurus said in Agentic coding workflows:

moving things into namespaces.

Does not compute... you mean you don't start by outlining your namespaces before writing your script

[griffinboy]

@dannytaurus

Haha, we aren't there yet.
AI is a fool when it comes to Analog Modelling.

But maybe someday.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey said in Agentic coding workflows:

Does it not save it for you to view in the web version?

Oh, I don't know. I've only used the terminal version. Makes sense that there would be a web backup off chats though. I don't really get how it works, coding with AI on the web. I guess you just link it to a GitHub repo and then view the diffs in the web app? Feels a bit detached to me. But I am slowly spending less and less time in the actual files, and more time reading diffs.

How do the Codex models compare to Sonnet (that's the main one I'm using)? And does it have usage limits like Claude (resets every 5 hours/week)?

I found GPT-5.4 to be on par with using Opus 4.6 in Cursor. Mind you, I often switch to Sonnet in Cursor because I don't feel like there's a huge difference for what I do. And Opus costs 5X Sonnet, so that's good.

Does not compute... you mean you don't start by outlining your namespaces before writing your script

Not at all. I still haven't got my head around when and why to use namespaces. Maybe I haven't made a plugin complicated enough to really benefit from them. But that's what's cool about AI. I can code up ad-hoc from scratch then have the model tidy it up for me. Of course, that would be much more reliable if we had unit tests for everything

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Agentic coding workflows:

I guess you just link it to a GitHub repo and then view the diffs in the web app?

Yep that's it

@dannytaurus said in Agentic coding workflows:

I found GPT-5.4 to be on par with using Opus 4.6 in Cursor. Mind you, I often switch to Sonnet in Cursor because I don't feel like there's a huge difference for what I do. And Opus costs 5X Sonnet, so that's good.

How does the price compare? I'm mostly using Sonnet for coding but I also have a ChatGPT sub, if I could drop the Anthropic sub that would be good.

@dannytaurus said in Agentic coding workflows:

when and why to use namespaces.

It's like a class in an OOP language. I group related code together. For example if I have a settings page on my GUI then I will create a UserSettings namespace. For the preset handling I will have a presets namespace. For laf I have a look and feel namespace, etc.

[David Healey]

Apparently Claude Code doesn't read AGENTS.md, you need to add a CLAUDE.md too.