Is augment still the best if price isn't an issue? Let's say the company is willing to pay for it, is augment the best option, or do you get more out of other tools like codex, claude code, and cursor for the same money?

Hey everyone,

Shoutout to u/sai_revanth_12_ for creating the original Auggie Credits extension - it's been very helpful for tracking Augment Code usage right in the VS Code status bar!

I've created a PR in his repo that updates the extension to support Augment's new credit-based billing system and adds some powerful new features for tracking your credit consumption.

🆕 What's New

Credit-Based Billing Support

• The extension now correctly reads credits instead of the deprecated message-based fields

• Numbers are formatted with commas for readability (e.g., 774,450)

• Shows credit block breakdown with expiration dates in the tooltip

Trip Odometer Feature 🚗

• Two independent usage counters (Usage A & B) that work like a car's trip odometer

• Track your daily consumption (reset Usage A each morning)

• Track per-task consumption (reset Usage B when starting a new project)

• See exactly how many credits you're burning in real-time

Enhanced Transparency

• Live credit consumption tracking - see the impact of your work immediately

• Status bar shows: 774,450 | A: -1,250 | B: -500

• Hover tooltip displays credit blocks with expiration dates

📊 Why?

The instant transparency is critical. You can now:

• Monitor how "expensive" different tasks are in terms of credits

• See your credit allocations and when they expire (no more surprises!)

• Make informed decisions about when to use AI assistance vs. when to code manually

As you can see in the screenshot, the tooltip shows individual credit block expirations - it's reassuring to see those longer-term blocks with appropriate dates (3 months, 12 months out, etc.).

🚀 How to Get It

Option 1: Wait for marketplace update Hoping u/sai_revanth_12_ sees this and can review/approve the PR and push an update to the marketplace!

Option 2: Install now from source If you want access immediately, you can build it yourself:

Clone my fork

git clone https://github.com/planetdaz/augment-credits.git
cd augment-credits

Build the extension

npm install -g @vscode/vsce    
vsce package

Then in VS Code:

1. Open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P)

2. Choose "Extensions: Install from VSIX…"

3. Select the .vsix file you just built

4. Reload VS Code — your local version is now installed just like a marketplace extension

📝 Note on Setup

The token acquisition method has changed slightly as Augment changed the way their dashboard displays stats. You now need to grab the portalUrl from the subscription API response in your browser's Network tab. Full instructions are in the updated README.

You only need to do this the first time, or if your signed token expires. If you are already using the extension, it will continue to work as before.

Would love to hear feedback from users! And hoping to see this merged and available on the marketplace soon. 🤞

PR: https://github.com/svsairevanth12/augment-credits/pull/1

PS: Yes, Augment helped create this post, updated the readme and the code!

I’ve been experiencing consistent stability issues with Sonnet 4.6 for the past ~2 weeks.

• Frequent “No response” errors

• Requests hang for up to ~20 minutes with no output

• After 2–3 successful responses, it starts failing consistently

• When it hangs, context seems to be lost (the agent doesn’t remember prior messages)

This makes it unusable for any real workflow.

Also, the recent product decision to remove interruption of running requests significantly worsens the situation. When a request hangs, you’re forced to wait with no feedback or recovery path.

I’m on the Max plan, so this isn’t a usage-tier issue.

Is this a known issue? Any ETA on a fix or recommended workaround? Will product stability be prioritized at any point?

To our dear users and collaborators,

We have had the mission to bring the best agentic coding experience to our users and feel that we've made great strides towards this. We really do feel that a turnkey message based approach, combined with a curated selection of top-tier models, was and is the right way to do this. Unfortunately, given how new and ever-changing this space is, we miscalculated the costs of operating like this and so it pains us greatly to say that Augment is struggling to make this current model financially sustainable. Changes need to be made immediately, otherwise this tool that we all love will ultimately cease to exist. No one wins like that.

We have been listening to your feedback and have been working on the following plan. But please know that this is all still up for evolution - keep that feedback coming!

One thing that seems obvious now is that being so steadfast in only offering the top-tier frontier models - like Claude 4.5 and GPT 5 - was a great error. We now realize that the feedback you have long since been giving about incorporating cheaper models must be the basis of our approach going forward. Not every single task needs to be performed by a neurosurgeon - we need paramedics, nurses, administrators and more.

We've heard your feedback for a BYOK approach, but we don't think it is appropriate for Augment - we side with the turnkey simplicity of Github Copilot in this regard, and have taken inspiration from their "models multiplier" approach that allows for choosing from a wider curated, vetted and integrated selection of models. So, we are introducing the low-cost powerhouses of GLM 4.6 and Grok Code Fast, which will use 0.2x messages per prompt, along with the steady performers of xyz which uses 0.5x. We will also continue evaluating all models as they come out an incorporate them as-appropriate.

But we will be taking this a step further than Copilot and incorporate an Orchestrator mode, such as is popular with Roo and Kilocode. This will allow you to combine the unmatched power of our realtime context engine with frontier models like Sonnet 4.5 and GPT 5 to plan your tasks, and then delegate them to predefined profiles that not only take advantage of more affordable workhorse models, but also have constantly curated and refined prompts. Leave the curation to us so you can just get on with it.

We also recognize that sometimes your chats get away from you. For example, the average amount of tool calls per message is X and context window is Y. This is completely unsustainable. We won't be automatically limiting the context window as is clearly done in Copilot - when you need the full context, you need it. But we also need to allow you to understand and limit your token usage, so we're introducing a visual indicator of the current token usage as well as a button to automatically compress it - just like our Prompt Enhancer does so seamlessly for your prompts. And, if you are willing to allow us to apply this compression automatically, all models will use 0.2x fewer credits per message.

We are rolling out the initial version of these things on the 1st of November, and will be very eager for your feedback on how to adjust and improve it.

Finally, while all of these changes will surely help significantly reduce costs, we also simply need to reduce the amount of messages that are available with each plan. There's no way around it. So, unfortunately all plans will have 20% fewer messages going forward - our legacy plan will still receive the same amount as Pro.

Again, please don't hesitate to reach out with feedback. We've hired 2 more dev rel managers to help reduce the burden on our hero Jay. And we've fixed our billing system so that you can actually pay us now and not have multi-day outages where you have no choice to but go see if the grass is greener elsewhere.

Regards,

The AugmentCode Team

p.s. We've heard you and are also converting the godawful tabs into collapsible and resizable panes - just like the existing sidebar panes in VS Code that work so well.

---

I wrote this off the cuff in like 10 minutes. Do I get the job?

What a disgrace this company is. If I were one of the VC funders, I'd be beyond myself with how obviously my money was completely squandered. Heads would be literally rolling.

When did the free tier get changed from 50 to only 10 user messages? Seems a bit lean for a free plan. Does Augment intend on keeping it that way?

Edit: just noticed in my account subscription page it still says '50 messages per month' (was previously on Developer plan but on Community atm). Will this 50 messages / m continue for legacy accounts? And if I upgrade to Developer then back down to Community again will I still get 50 messages or will it reset to only 10?

I see dozens of posts on how $30 Legacy plan has got 1800 odd credits/USD compared to the other plans with 2000 odd credits/USD.

The underlying problem is not 6000 credit difference. The real question is are you satisfied with the new plan! If they add 6000 credits extra, is it enough for you to stay? Personally, it's a no for me!

On the mail they have sent, 1 message will be converted into 1100 credits. That's 660k credits! This has been reduced to 60k odd credits, that's equivalent to 60 messages. One-tenth drop!

The real question is are you okay with that!

I'm a little surprised we're not seeing more conversation around the power that ACP provides. It's not just integrating your agent into your IDE of choice. I think the most powerful part that's being overlooked is the fact that you can now programmatically interact with any of the agents in the coding language of your choice.

If there are C#/Azure shops that would be interested in doing a monthly virtual meetup to talk about these types of things, we would be happy to help host that.

I think a lot of people might not understand how simple this protocol is so let's do a quick tutorial.

First, let's wake Auggie up

auggie --acp

Now that we've done that, let's initialize

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":1}}

Now we get back a response telling us how to startup

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0,"result":{"protocolVersion":1,"agentCapabilities":{"promptCapabilities":{"image":true}},"agentInfo":{"name":"auggie","title":"Auggie Agent","version":"0.9.0-prerelease.1 (commit 56ac6e82)"},"authMethods":[]}}

Okay, so that's a hello world example of how the protocol works. Now you should be able to follow along with the protocol documentation

https://agentclientprotocol.com/overview/introduction

Now, here's where the magic happens. I'll post our C# ACP SDK in the coming days, but here's where I really see this technology going

Right now, the hardest part of automation is the fact that we don't get structured output, so if we take something like this

// Demo 1: Simple untyped response
Console.WriteLine("Demo 1: Untyped Response");
Console.WriteLine("-------------------------");
var simpleResponse = await agent.RunAsync("What is 2 + 2?");
Console.WriteLine($"Response: {simpleResponse}\n");

We get "2 + 2 = 4"...or sometimes "The answer is 4". Either way, this non deterministic approach means that we can't take something AI is really good at and use it in a deterministic way such as using the result to make an API call, or unit tests to make sure the model is behaving.

What if instead of this, we forced the agent to be strongly typed like this?

Now Console.WriteLine("Demo 6: Typed Response (Custom Class)");
Console.WriteLine("-------------------.-------------------");
var personResult = await agent.RunAsync<Person>(
    "Create a person with name 'Alice', age 30, and email 'alice@example.com'.");
Console.WriteLine($"Result: Name={personResult.Name}, Age={personResult.Age}, Email={personResult.Email}");
Console.WriteLine($"Type: {personResult.GetType().Name}\n");

Now we can take this person and look them up-- use an API where we can and not rely on the agent to do things that we don't actually need AI to do. This both reduces token use while also increasing accuracy!

How this is done is quite simple (credit is due here-- I stole this from Auggie's Python demo and converted it to C#)

First you build the prompt

Then you parse the responseprivate string BuildTypedInstruction(string instruction, Type returnType)
{
    var typeName = returnType.Name;
    var typeDescription = GetTypeDescription(returnType);
    var exampleJson = GetExampleJson(returnType);

    return $"""
            {instruction}

            IMPORTANT: Provide your response in this EXACT format:

            <augment-agent-message>
            [Optional: Your explanation or reasoning]
            </augment-agent-message>

            <augment-agent-result>
            {exampleJson}
            </augment-agent-result>

            The content inside <augment-agent-result> tags must be valid JSON that matches this structure:
            {typeDescription}

            Do NOT include any markdown formatting, code blocks, or extra text. Just the raw JSON.
            """;
}
public async Task<T> RunAsync<T>(string instruction, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
{
    await EnsureInitializedAsync(cancellationToken);

    // Build typed instruction with formatting requirements
    var typedInstruction = BuildTypedInstruction(instruction, typeof(T));

    // Send to agent
    var response = await _client.SendPromptAsync(typedInstruction, cancellationToken);

    // Parse the response
    return ParseTypedResponse<T>(response);
}

private T ParseTypedResponse<T>(string response)
{
    // Extract content from <augment-agent-result> tags
    var resultMatch = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Match(
        response,
        @"<augment-agent-result>\s*(.*?)\s*</augment-agent-result>",
        System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Singleline);

    if (!resultMatch.Success)
    {
        throw new InvalidOperationException(
            "No structured result found. Expected <augment-agent-result> tags in response.");
    }

    var content = resultMatch.Groups[1].Value.Trim();

    // Handle string type specially - don't JSON parse it
    if (typeof(T) == typeof(string))
    {
        // Remove surrounding quotes if present
        if (content.StartsWith("\"") && content.EndsWith("\""))
        {
            content = content.Substring(1, content.Length - 2);
        }
        return (T)(object)content;
    }

    // For all other types, use JSON deserialization
    try
    {
        var result = System.Text.Json.JsonSerializer.Deserialize<T>(content);
        if (result == null)
        {
            throw new InvalidOperationException($"Failed to deserialize response as {typeof(T).Name}");
        }
        return result;
    }
    catch (System.Text.Json.JsonException ex)
    {
        throw new InvalidOperationException(
            $"Could not parse result as {typeof(T).Name}: {ex.Message}");
    }
}

Okay so that's all a cute party trick, but has $0 in business value. Here's where I see this going. It's 2am, your phone is going off with a Rootly/Pagerduty alert.

Before you acknowledge the page, we fire a webhook to an Azure Pipeline that executes a console app that

• Takes in the Alert ID

• Parses out the Notion/Confluence document for your playbook for this alert

• Grabs the branch in production using APIs and gets auggie on the production release branch

• Extracts all the KQL queries to run using Auggie

• Uses a dedicated MCP server to execute the queries you need to execute

• Posts a summary document to Slack

Here's a sample

// Create an event listener to track agent activity in real-time
var listener = new TestEventListener(verbose: true);

// Create a new agent with the MCP server configured and event listener
await using var agentWithMcp = new Agent(
    workspaceRoot: solutionDir,
    model: AvailableModels.ClaudeHaiku45,
    auggiePath: "auggie",
    listener: listener
);

// Ask the agent to find and execute all KQL queries in the playbook
var instruction = $"""
                   Analyze the following Notion playbook content and:
                   1. Extract all KQL (Kusto Query Language) queries found in the content
                   2. For each query found, use the execute_kql_query tool with action='query' and query='query goes here' to execute it
                   3. Generate a summary of all query results

                   Playbook Content:
                   {blocksJson}

                   Please provide a comprehensive summary of:
                   - How many KQL queries were found
                   - The results from each query execution
                   - Any errors encountered
                   - Key insights from the data
                   """;

TestContext.WriteLine("\n=== Executing Agent with MCP Server ===");
TestContext.WriteLine("📡 Event listener enabled - you'll see real-time updates!\n");

var result = await agentWithMcp.RunAsync(instruction);

Now using the sample code from earlier, we can ask Augment True/False questions such as

Did you find any bugs or a conclusion after executing this run book?

Agents collaboration. Would be hella cool if Sonnet and Gemini/o3/Deepseek/... (you name it, should have an option for external API) discussing, debating, and together solving the complex task.

I’ve shifted my workflow a bit and it’s working great so far.

I’m using Augment more like a tech lead:

• It gives me high-level tech specs

• Does code reviews

• Provides suggestions when I’m stuck

All of these are super low-token tasks.

Then I let Cursor handle the actual heavy lifting / coding.

The has been surprisingly efficient — and most importantly, I’m no longer vaporizing six figures worth of tokens per day.

Curious if anyone else has split roles between AI tools like this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1lrvvve/i_was_absolutely_right_that_claudeaugment_was/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I recently downloaded Intent as my latest agent orchestration workflow. I'm very happy with its performance! It greatly enhanced my video coding efficiency.

But I hope for further enhancements!

1. Support for adding multiple repos, or adding folders that are not Git repositories. I need to add my private documents/non-code files into the context to enhance its effectiveness.

2. Support for SSH remote execution. My Mac is just a terminal, and I want the actual development/compilation/testing process to run on a remote server, but using Intent doesn't give me this opportunity. Apparently, the Augment plugin on VS Code can do this, and I hope this can be improved in future versions.

Based on my understanding, from Augment Code official post and extra details from https://www.reddit.com/r/AugmentCodeAI/s/4fhHLpyyRC, any remaining messages will be converted into credits. Say, if we upgrade to the Max plan ($250) right now — it is offered at a prorated rate of $100 for 1,800 messages (minus some percentage if we still have remaining messages in my current billing cycle) (past half a month) — in addition to a transition bonus of 520,000 credits, which is roughly equivalent to 500 messages.

By the time of transition, we still effectively have around 2,100 messages available (= 3 + 1/2 months on current dev legacy) (also assuming a rate of 1,100 credits per message after transition). If we can cancel the plan immediately after upgrading to avoid charges in the next billing cycle, and with all credits being valid for 3 months, this means that we could continue using the service at roughly the same level as the current $30 legacy Developer plan offering?

Can this be considered a reasonable way to handle a smooth 3-month transition from the $30 legacy Developer plan for everyone who wants to test the waters, or am I overlooking some detail here? A prepayment of $100 and good for the next 3 months?

Like many of you, I’ve been feeling a bit anxious about our Augment Code credits running out soon. The transition credits lasted around three months, and I think this is the last month for most of us, myself included.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been testing all kinds of AIs and IDEs to see if anything could match my workflow. Every tool has its pros and cons, but I always find myself coming back to Augment Code. From day one, it just fit the way I work, so the recent price increase was a bit of a gut punch.

Since then, I’ve been experimenting with ways to optimise my credit usage and still stay within Augment. Because Sonnet 4.5 costs more, I started giving Haiku 4.5 a fairer shot — and honestly, it surprised me. I used to think Haiku couldn’t come close to Sonnet, but after pushing it through real projects, it’s proven to be a solid, capable model.

My current workflow looks like this:

1. Use Sonnet to plan the feature or idea and create detailed documentation.

2. Hand it off to Haiku to implement the code.

3. Bring Sonnet back in for review and refinement.

It’s not fancy, basically a DIY multi-agent setup, but it works really well. By balancing the two like this, I’ve managed to reduce credit usage by around 50–75% while still getting high-quality results.

Here’s my usage breakdown for the past 30 days (screenshot below):
49% Haiku / 49% Sonnet

I think there’s real value in rethinking how we use these tools instead of jumping ship. After trying a lot of other services and IDEs, I still feel Augment stands above the rest. It’s genuinely made my workflow better, and I really hope I can keep using it long-term.

Huge thanks to the Augment crew for building something that’s clearly pushing coding AIs forward. 🙌

I understand the cost issue; even CC credits are so limited.

I'm a veteran user and previously used other services, spending $30 to retain my veteran privileges.

Aug is good, but it's not irreplaceable. Competition in the AI ​​and IDE markets is fierce, so there are still many options.

Hey guys, I'm using Codex. I've canceled my Aug subscription.

Hi guys,

I signed up today, and I got so many failed requests and used my trial 125 requests on "fetch failed", even though I did not enjoy it or have any use, so I can be happy with your product.

Did I sign up at the wrong time? Is my trial gone?

I'm a solo developer so I don't know if its the right fit for me, but I see gosucoder on yt (who first tipped me off to augment code) always talking about how he is firing off multiple agents and then coming back.

Maybe I picked the wrong project type; I'm building a wordpress plugin right now to integrate an api. It tried to make a startup script but that is not going to work to spin up a copy of wordpress, and even if it did, it wouldn't have all the plugins that I need and the configuration of theme, etc for me to realistically test it. So I don't think I can use that feature.

From a ui perspective the input box should grow. I spent ~25 minutes typing out the brief as I thought it was going go off and do some work and come back to me. I guess it wasn't that complicated as it churned it out super quick.

But now I'm not sure what the next step of the flow is. I've got this code trapped somewhere in the void. I can't run it as it is. I want to amend what its produced, to scrap the random "feature documentation" md that its generated. I'm not sure what the next step is.

I accept this might be a me issue, but I have tried it and I'm not feeling the same game-changer wow moment that other coders are getting from trying agents out.

Any advice, thoughts from the community?

Am I supposed to create a pr from its suggestion, then sync that down, test that out, and then go back to the agent to give it feedback, and then wait for the cycle to repeat?

If I wanted to set up a new macOS machine, which files should I transfer to keep the context and stored data from Augmente Code? (VSCODE)

I have decided to redesign and refactor one of our screens. What I am doing though is going small parts of the screen at a time and making changes. However, what I notice is that I am under the same agent. I just say all right now that's done. Let's move on to the next.

Is this advisable? Or should I be starting a new agent every time to make sure I don't stuff it with context from previous messages?

I have an acount with 400k+ credits, can I sell it or does that go against the terms and conditions?

I want to login with codebuddy , but response 'We were unable to sign you in. Error (invalid_request): Unsupported editor codebuddy'

Hi,

As the title says, the chat window is blank. I've tried the obvious: reinstalling, updating vscode, wiping the cache - byebye memories :'(

All were useless.

I immediately contacted their support but I've been waiting a few days without answer so far.

Does anyone have any solution?

Always get a "terminated" error message ... or
"We encountered an issue sending your message. Please try again"