{"slug": "gpt-terra", "name": "GPT Terra", "category": "ai", "category_name": "AI models and assistants", "description": "OpenAI's mid-tier GPT-5.6 model, between Luna and Sol, available in ChatGPT and Codex.", "recommenders": 12, "commenters": 22, "warners": 1, "score": 13.171, "rising": 10.67, "first": "2026-07-12", "latest": "2026-10-26", "why": "HN commenters like Terra as an everyday model for coding and implementation, with some preferring its code and writing to Claude's and others citing lower cost and faster responses.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 12, "neutral": 9, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 5, 6, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Everyday coding", "Multi-model workflows"], "caveat": "Hard tasks", "short_quote": "GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages than Claude's usual multi paragraph word soup.", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "unknown", "aliases": ["Terra", "GPT-5.6 Terra", "GPT 5.6 Terra"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like Terra as an everyday model for coding and implementation", "cites": [{"id": 797339745, "item_id": 49833734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49833734", "by": "anothereng", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If I can afford some time I use Terra (I use terra for most coding things)", "excerpt": "Depends on the complexity of the task. And how fast I want it solved. If I wanted solved fast I use a better model (Sol), If I can afford some time I use Terra (I use terra for most coding things). If it is something super simple like changing a css class I use Luna.", "context": "", "use_case": "most coding tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Sol and Luna"}, {"id": 794779216, "item_id": 49673701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673701", "by": "ghosty141", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations", "excerpt": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations, Sol High for tracking down hard bugs and planning more complex systems.", "context": "", "use_case": "implementation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 787136016, "item_id": 49196001, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49196001", "by": "penetrarthur", "date": "2026-08-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything.", "excerpt": "I wouldn't call Terra a mid tier model. Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything. The difference between Terra and Sol is negligible, but it is way more limit hungry and much much slower.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2"}, {"id": 795549794, "item_id": 49721862, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49721862", "by": "pod_krad", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra, Luna - for implementation in simple routine cases.", "excerpt": "Astra xhigh - for specs, analysis. Sol xhigh - for orchestration and implementation in complicated cases. Terra, Luna - for implementation in simple routine cases.", "context": "", "use_case": "simple implementation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}]}, {"text": ", with some preferring its code and writing to Claude's", "cites": [{"id": 794777648, "item_id": 49673603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673603", "by": "donatj", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra has been absolutely amazing for me and totally blows Sonnet out of the water.", "excerpt": "I feel like the odd man out ITT but Terra has been absolutely amazing for me and totally blows Sonnet out of the water. My company pays for Claude so I use Sonnet in the office but at home I use Terra and I find it far more likely to one shot some very decent code.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding at home", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 791985792, "item_id": 49499112, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49499112", "by": "nijave", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages than Claude's usual multi paragraph word soup.", "excerpt": "Eh, I don't want the tools I use to stamp their names on everything. It's also not uncommon for me to switch between GPT and Claude or different models in the harness if one of them isn't doing well. GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages than Claude's usual multi paragraph word soup. I don't need \"Created by Claude Code 1.2.3, Opus 4.8 inside tmux ins", "context": "", "use_case": "PR bodies and commit messages", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Session URL appended to commit messages and PR descriptions by default"}, {"id": 794774321, "item_id": 49673395, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673395", "by": "o_m", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I use GPT 5.6 Terra high fast mode, with Luna for everything else.", "excerpt": "I used to main Claude, but I can't stand how it writes. I feel like I'm wasting too much time trying to decipher the output. Adding writing rules does not seem to work. Now I use GPT 5.6 Terra high fast mode, with Luna for everything else. I might consider using Sol for planning. I can't stand using Sol or smarter models for coding, because they will eventually try to rewrite everything in the codebase. I also don't ", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "Claude", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}]}, {"text": " and others citing lower cost and faster responses.", "cites": [{"id": 782224704, "item_id": 48889044, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48889044", "by": "madaxe_again", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The bulk of our workload is now going via terra, which has cut our cost in half by itself, as well as improved response times by 50%", "excerpt": "The first thing I used Sol for was to assess 5.6 on our workflows - previously, it was 5.5 for everything, as the quality on simpler models was just not good enough. We\u2019re doing a mix of text and image analysis to extract explicit and implicit structured data from a steaming pile. They do work pretty much as advertised. The bulk of our workload is now going via terra, which has cut our cost in half by itself, as well", "context": "runs production workflows extracting structured data", "use_case": "text and image data extraction", "switched_from": "GPT-5.5", "story": "Migrating a production AI agent to GPT-5.6: 2.2x faster, 27% cheaper"}, {"id": 787136016, "item_id": 49196001, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49196001", "by": "penetrarthur", "date": "2026-08-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything.", "excerpt": "I wouldn't call Terra a mid tier model. Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything. The difference between Terra and Sol is negligible, but it is way more limit hungry and much much slower.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2"}]}, {"text": " The most common caveat is that many hand harder planning, debugging and review work to Sol or Astra", "cites": [{"id": 794779216, "item_id": 49673701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673701", "by": "ghosty141", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations", "excerpt": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations, Sol High for tracking down hard bugs and planning more complex systems.", "context": "", "use_case": "implementation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 795549794, "item_id": 49721862, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49721862", "by": "pod_krad", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra, Luna - for implementation in simple routine cases.", "excerpt": "Astra xhigh - for specs, analysis. Sol xhigh - for orchestration and implementation in complicated cases. Terra, Luna - for implementation in simple routine cases.", "context": "", "use_case": "simple implementation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 800403122, "item_id": 50025195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50025195", "by": "aftbit", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I often push down to Terra or Luna", "excerpt": "I have had good luck rotating between the three tiers of GPT 5.6 with occasional jumps up to Astra or Fable. Most of my work is with GPT-5.6-Sol. Simple tasks like data extraction or trivial refactors (rename this variable etc) I often push down to Terra or Luna, or even to self-hosted Gemma4:31B. Very tricky stuff, like planning a new feature, design review, or code review of a complex change across multiple reposit", "context": "", "use_case": "simple tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?"}, {"id": 795268499, "item_id": 49704281, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49704281", "by": "glimshe", "date": "2026-09-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'll use Luna/Terra.", "excerpt": "I select my review model based on change complexity. If I'm confident that the change is localized (given that I always maintain an up to date and complete mental model of the application), I'll use Luna/Terra. For deeper changes, I use Sol/Astra. Sol is so good for code reviews that I'll only engage Astra in the very riskiest changes.", "context": "", "use_case": "code review of localized changes", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?"}]}, {"text": ", and a few see it as stuck in an awkward middle tier.", "cites": [{"id": 793402035, "item_id": 49587627, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587627", "by": "Alifatisk", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Terra have turned into this middle child in a weird spot", "excerpt": "Seeing what others have already created using GPT-6, it seem to be a new stepping stone in capabilities and overall \"intelligence\". However, some other details I think is worth bringing up is that this model is 70% more token efficient than GPT-5.6 Sol and consuming 1/3 of the tokens compared to Sol (max) in the Codex [1]. I am just thinking loudly here but, it seems like even though Astra is pricier than Sol, you mi", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Astra"}, {"id": 796952721, "item_id": 49809545, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49809545", "by": "azuanrb", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to run it as my main driver at medium/high", "excerpt": "Terra is in a weird spot for me. I used to run it as my main driver at medium/high, but after Luna's price drop and some experimenting, I switched to Luna xhigh. If I need extra juice, I just use Sol. Intelligence-wise, Luna xhigh is more than good enough for me. Speed is the only downside. Terra/Sol might be similarly intelligent, but they can get things done faster.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Sol and Luna"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Everyday coding", "summary": "Used as the default model for most implementation and coding tasks.", "quotes": [{"id": 797339745, "item_id": 49833734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49833734", "by": "anothereng", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If I can afford some time I use Terra (I use terra for most coding things)", "excerpt": "Depends on the complexity of the task. And how fast I want it solved. If I wanted solved fast I use a better model (Sol), If I can afford some time I use Terra (I use terra for most coding things). If it is something super simple like changing a css class I use Luna.", "context": "", "use_case": "most coding tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Sol and Luna"}, {"id": 794779216, "item_id": 49673701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673701", "by": "ghosty141", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations", "excerpt": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations, Sol High for tracking down hard bugs and planning more complex systems.", "context": "", "use_case": "implementation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 787136016, "item_id": 49196001, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49196001", "by": "penetrarthur", "date": "2026-08-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything.", "excerpt": "I wouldn't call Terra a mid tier model. Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything. The difference between Terra and Sol is negligible, but it is way more limit hungry and much much slower.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2"}]}, {"label": "Multi-model workflows", "summary": "Commonly slotted into a role in multi-model setups, such as delegate, investigator or builder.", "quotes": [{"id": 795306114, "item_id": 49706632, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706632", "by": "pkulak", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra for delegate", "excerpt": "Same. I use Luna for research/scout/test subagents, Sol for coordinator, Terra for delegate, and Astra high for review and simplify. Even with Astra in there, it\u2019s fresh context, and I\u2019m consistently amazed by how far I can stretch my $20 subscription with really good results.", "context": "$20 subscription user", "use_case": "delegate agent", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?"}, {"id": 785823281, "item_id": 49113955, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49113955", "by": "bob1029", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Run Y copies of Terra in parallel to investigate the hypothesis results", "excerpt": "Here is a rough approximation of the pipeline I use: Phase 1 - Run X copies of Luna in parallel over the user's prompt. The purpose is to generate a diverse set of hypotheses. Phase 2 - Run Y copies of Terra in parallel to investigate the hypothesis results, with each receiving them in a randomized order. Phase 3 - Run 1 copy of Sol over investigation reports. The goal is to ensure that the agent covers more initial ", "context": "", "use_case": "investigating hypotheses", "switched_from": "", "story": "Advancing the price-performance frontier with GPT\u20115.6"}, {"id": 782220465, "item_id": 48888779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48888779", "by": "Leynos", "date": "2026-07-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Opus to plan and GPT 5.6 Terra to build", "excerpt": "For normal building work I use Opus to plan and GPT 5.6 Terra to build. The point is, these are not normal constrained building tasks. Perhaps I should have had more faith in Opus's ability to complete tasks like these, but it just hasn't been my experience to date. Opus and 5.5 work great within constrained user story type tasks, but I just don't have confidence in them to complete a large unbounded task like: \"find", "context": "", "use_case": "building code", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fable extended until 19 July"}]}, {"label": "Versus Claude", "summary": "Some find it one-shots decent code more often than Sonnet and writes more concisely than Claude.", "quotes": [{"id": 794777648, "item_id": 49673603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673603", "by": "donatj", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra has been absolutely amazing for me and totally blows Sonnet out of the water.", "excerpt": "I feel like the odd man out ITT but Terra has been absolutely amazing for me and totally blows Sonnet out of the water. My company pays for Claude so I use Sonnet in the office but at home I use Terra and I find it far more likely to one shot some very decent code.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding at home", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 791985792, "item_id": 49499112, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49499112", "by": "nijave", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages than Claude's usual multi paragraph word soup.", "excerpt": "Eh, I don't want the tools I use to stamp their names on everything. It's also not uncommon for me to switch between GPT and Claude or different models in the harness if one of them isn't doing well. GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages than Claude's usual multi paragraph word soup. I don't need \"Created by Claude Code 1.2.3, Opus 4.8 inside tmux ins", "context": "", "use_case": "PR bodies and commit messages", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Session URL appended to commit messages and PR descriptions by default"}, {"id": 794774321, "item_id": 49673395, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673395", "by": "o_m", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I use GPT 5.6 Terra high fast mode, with Luna for everything else.", "excerpt": "I used to main Claude, but I can't stand how it writes. I feel like I'm wasting too much time trying to decipher the output. Adding writing rules does not seem to work. Now I use GPT 5.6 Terra high fast mode, with Luna for everything else. I might consider using Sol for planning. I can't stand using Sol or smarter models for coding, because they will eventually try to rewrite everything in the codebase. I also don't ", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "Claude", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}]}, {"label": "Cost and speed", "summary": "One production user halved costs and cut response times by 50% by switching from GPT-5.5, and others call it faster than Sol.", "quotes": [{"id": 782224704, "item_id": 48889044, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48889044", "by": "madaxe_again", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The bulk of our workload is now going via terra, which has cut our cost in half by itself, as well as improved response times by 50%", "excerpt": "The first thing I used Sol for was to assess 5.6 on our workflows - previously, it was 5.5 for everything, as the quality on simpler models was just not good enough. We\u2019re doing a mix of text and image analysis to extract explicit and implicit structured data from a steaming pile. They do work pretty much as advertised. The bulk of our workload is now going via terra, which has cut our cost in half by itself, as well", "context": "runs production workflows extracting structured data", "use_case": "text and image data extraction", "switched_from": "GPT-5.5", "story": "Migrating a production AI agent to GPT-5.6: 2.2x faster, 27% cheaper"}, {"id": 787136016, "item_id": 49196001, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49196001", "by": "penetrarthur", "date": "2026-08-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything.", "excerpt": "I wouldn't call Terra a mid tier model. Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything. The difference between Terra and Sol is negligible, but it is way more limit hungry and much much slower.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2"}, {"id": 796952721, "item_id": 49809545, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49809545", "by": "azuanrb", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to run it as my main driver at medium/high", "excerpt": "Terra is in a weird spot for me. I used to run it as my main driver at medium/high, but after Luna's price drop and some experimenting, I switched to Luna xhigh. If I need extra juice, I just use Sol. Intelligence-wise, Luna xhigh is more than good enough for me. Speed is the only downside. Terra/Sol might be similarly intelligent, but they can get things done faster.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Sol and Luna"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Hard tasks", "summary": "Many users switch to Sol or Astra for hard bugs, planning, and complex reviews.", "quotes": [{"id": 794779216, "item_id": 49673701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673701", "by": "ghosty141", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations", "excerpt": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations, Sol High for tracking down hard bugs and planning more complex systems.", "context": "", "use_case": "implementation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 800403122, "item_id": 50025195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50025195", "by": "aftbit", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I often push down to Terra or Luna", "excerpt": "I have had good luck rotating between the three tiers of GPT 5.6 with occasional jumps up to Astra or Fable. Most of my work is with GPT-5.6-Sol. Simple tasks like data extraction or trivial refactors (rename this variable etc) I often push down to Terra or Luna, or even to self-hosted Gemma4:31B. Very tricky stuff, like planning a new feature, design review, or code review of a complex change across multiple reposit", "context": "", "use_case": "simple tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?"}, {"id": 795268499, "item_id": 49704281, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49704281", "by": "glimshe", "date": "2026-09-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'll use Luna/Terra.", "excerpt": "I select my review model based on change complexity. If I'm confident that the change is localized (given that I always maintain an up to date and complete mental model of the application), I'll use Luna/Terra. For deeper changes, I use Sol/Astra. Sol is so good for code reviews that I'll only engage Astra in the very riskiest changes.", "context": "", "use_case": "code review of localized changes", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?"}]}, {"label": "Middle-tier squeeze", "summary": "Some see it as caught between cheaper Luna and stronger Sol, and one user moved to Luna xhigh.", "quotes": [{"id": 793402035, "item_id": 49587627, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587627", "by": "Alifatisk", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Terra have turned into this middle child in a weird spot", "excerpt": "Seeing what others have already created using GPT-6, it seem to be a new stepping stone in capabilities and overall \"intelligence\". However, some other details I think is worth bringing up is that this model is 70% more token efficient than GPT-5.6 Sol and consuming 1/3 of the tokens compared to Sol (max) in the Codex [1]. I am just thinking loudly here but, it seems like even though Astra is pricier than Sol, you mi", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Astra"}, {"id": 796952721, "item_id": 49809545, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49809545", "by": "azuanrb", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to run it as my main driver at medium/high", "excerpt": "Terra is in a weird spot for me. I used to run it as my main driver at medium/high, but after Luna's price drop and some experimenting, I switched to Luna xhigh. If I need extra juice, I just use Sol. Intelligence-wise, Luna xhigh is more than good enough for me. Speed is the only downside. Terra/Sol might be similarly intelligent, but they can get things done faster.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Sol and Luna"}]}, {"label": "Usage limits", "summary": "One user switched to it from Sol to manage limits and still doubts that will be enough; another saw a brief capacity notice.", "quotes": [{"id": 791464336, "item_id": 49466521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49466521", "by": "romanhn", "date": "2026-08-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've so far switched from Sol to Terra but not sure even that will be sufficient.", "excerpt": "Yes and yes. I've so far switched from Sol to Terra but not sure even that will be sufficient. This also feels like it neuters a lot of the utility of banked/paid resets, since I'm not willing to re-up the weekly limit when I'm at 50% or whatever, but can no longer use it after hitting the 5h limit.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding within Codex limits", "switched_from": "Sol", "story": "Ask HN: How do you feel about the new 5H usage limit in Codex?"}, {"id": 787035232, "item_id": 49189702, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49189702", "by": "ukblewis", "date": "2026-08-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Terra and use it all of the time.", "excerpt": "I don\u2019t know where you get your statistics, but I love Terra and use it all of the time. It is the default fastest model in ChatGPT/Codex today. I saw today a notice saying that the model had hit capacity briefly", "context": "", "use_case": "default fast model in ChatGPT/Codex", "switched_from": "", "story": "Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2"}]}, {"label": "Account warnings", "summary": "One user got a Cyber Abuse warning on their account after asking Astra and Terra about spoofing data.", "quotes": [{"id": 793716721, "item_id": 49607295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49607295", "by": "spockz", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I started asking Astra and Terra about this", "excerpt": "I started asking Astra and Terra about this, including the idea of spoofing the data that was mentioned in this thread and got slammed with a warning for Cyber Abuse on my account, the thread is here https://chatgpt.com/s/cx_6a9fc635825481918c84187765645d5c. I will be very careful going forward with what I use open ai for and what I phrase how.", "context": "", "use_case": "asking about spoofing TV data", "switched_from": "", "story": "216M Spy TVs \u2013 The LG Smart TV Problem [video]"}]}], "who": [{"by": "pkulak", "context": "$20 subscription user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706632", "date": "2026-09-15"}, {"by": "madaxe_again", "context": "runs production workflows extracting structured data", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48889044", "date": "2026-07-13"}], "tags": ["for coding", "for subagent pipelines", "for data extraction", "for cost-conscious users", "for Codex users"], "use_cases": ["coding", "feature additions with clear specs", "app runtime api calls", "simple tasks", "most coding tasks", "simple implementation"], "compared": [{"slug": "gpt-sol", "name": "GPT Sol", "co": 20, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gpt-luna", "name": "GPT Luna", "co": 15, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "gpt-astra", "name": "GPT Astra", "co": 9, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude", "name": "Claude", "co": 3, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gpt-5", "name": "GPT-5", "co": 3, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude-opus", "name": "Claude Opus", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude-sonnet", "name": "Claude Sonnet", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "kimi", "name": "Kimi", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49672966", "title": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50248124", "title": "GPT-6.1 Terra", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805509", "title": "GPT-6 Sol and Luna", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49703003", "title": "GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49187575", "title": "Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50000488", "title": "Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 3, "recommend": 6}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 3}}, "quotes": [{"id": 803989667, "item_id": 50249354, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249354", "by": "elxr", "date": "2026-10-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm guessing Terra is good for the tasks that you'd typically use Sol 6.1-low for", "excerpt": "If you daily all these models (and have a modest budget, not some >$400 corporate allowance), then it's pretty obvious that Luna is small and fast, and Sol 6.1 is the big one for jobs that need significantly above average intelligence, comparatively to a human engineer. I use both constantly. Astra is really not relevant for the average dev except to do some moonshot task with a vague verification loop. Sure Sol 6.1 ", "context": "", "use_case": "feature additions with clear specs", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6.1 Terra"}, {"id": 803980113, "item_id": 50248757, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50248757", "by": "eknkc", "date": "2026-10-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "and sometimes Terra level models", "excerpt": "On the API we use a lot of Luna (cost efficient) and sometimes Terra level models. I think we never use a larger model. These are models that our app runtimes depend on. On subscription for coding and stuff I am basically on Astra Ultra all day long.", "context": "", "use_case": "app runtime API calls", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6.1 Terra"}, {"id": 800403122, "item_id": 50025195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50025195", "by": "aftbit", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I often push down to Terra or Luna", "excerpt": "I have had good luck rotating between the three tiers of GPT 5.6 with occasional jumps up to Astra or Fable. Most of my work is with GPT-5.6-Sol. Simple tasks like data extraction or trivial refactors (rename this variable etc) I often push down to Terra or Luna, or even to self-hosted Gemma4:31B. Very tricky stuff, like planning a new feature, design review, or code review of a complex change across multiple reposit", "context": "", "use_case": "simple tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?"}, {"id": 797339745, "item_id": 49833734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49833734", "by": "anothereng", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If I can afford some time I use Terra (I use terra for most coding things)", "excerpt": "Depends on the complexity of the task. And how fast I want it solved. If I wanted solved fast I use a better model (Sol), If I can afford some time I use Terra (I use terra for most coding things). If it is something super simple like changing a css class I use Luna.", "context": "", "use_case": "most coding tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Sol and Luna"}, {"id": 796952721, "item_id": 49809545, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49809545", "by": "azuanrb", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to run it as my main driver at medium/high", "excerpt": "Terra is in a weird spot for me. I used to run it as my main driver at medium/high, but after Luna's price drop and some experimenting, I switched to Luna xhigh. If I need extra juice, I just use Sol. Intelligence-wise, Luna xhigh is more than good enough for me. Speed is the only downside. Terra/Sol might be similarly intelligent, but they can get things done faster.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Sol and Luna"}, {"id": 795549794, "item_id": 49721862, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49721862", "by": "pod_krad", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra, Luna - for implementation in simple routine cases.", "excerpt": "Astra xhigh - for specs, analysis. Sol xhigh - for orchestration and implementation in complicated cases. Terra, Luna - for implementation in simple routine cases.", "context": "", "use_case": "simple implementation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 795306114, "item_id": 49706632, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706632", "by": "pkulak", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra for delegate", "excerpt": "Same. I use Luna for research/scout/test subagents, Sol for coordinator, Terra for delegate, and Astra high for review and simplify. Even with Astra in there, it\u2019s fresh context, and I\u2019m consistently amazed by how far I can stretch my $20 subscription with really good results.", "context": "$20 subscription user", "use_case": "delegate agent", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?"}, {"id": 795268499, "item_id": 49704281, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49704281", "by": "glimshe", "date": "2026-09-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'll use Luna/Terra.", "excerpt": "I select my review model based on change complexity. If I'm confident that the change is localized (given that I always maintain an up to date and complete mental model of the application), I'll use Luna/Terra. For deeper changes, I use Sol/Astra. Sol is so good for code reviews that I'll only engage Astra in the very riskiest changes.", "context": "", "use_case": "code review of localized changes", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?"}, {"id": 794779216, "item_id": 49673701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673701", "by": "ghosty141", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations", "excerpt": "Terra Medium/High for most implementations, Sol High for tracking down hard bugs and planning more complex systems.", "context": "", "use_case": "implementation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 794777648, "item_id": 49673603, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673603", "by": "donatj", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra has been absolutely amazing for me and totally blows Sonnet out of the water.", "excerpt": "I feel like the odd man out ITT but Terra has been absolutely amazing for me and totally blows Sonnet out of the water. My company pays for Claude so I use Sonnet in the office but at home I use Terra and I find it far more likely to one shot some very decent code.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding at home", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 794774321, "item_id": 49673395, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673395", "by": "o_m", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I use GPT 5.6 Terra high fast mode, with Luna for everything else.", "excerpt": "I used to main Claude, but I can't stand how it writes. I feel like I'm wasting too much time trying to decipher the output. Adding writing rules does not seem to work. Now I use GPT 5.6 Terra high fast mode, with Luna for everything else. I might consider using Sol for planning. I can't stand using Sol or smarter models for coding, because they will eventually try to rewrite everything in the codebase. I also don't ", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "Claude", "story": "Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?"}, {"id": 793716721, "item_id": 49607295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49607295", "by": "spockz", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I started asking Astra and Terra about this", "excerpt": "I started asking Astra and Terra about this, including the idea of spoofing the data that was mentioned in this thread and got slammed with a warning for Cyber Abuse on my account, the thread is here https://chatgpt.com/s/cx_6a9fc635825481918c84187765645d5c. I will be very careful going forward with what I use open ai for and what I phrase how.", "context": "", "use_case": "asking about spoofing TV data", "switched_from": "", "story": "216M Spy TVs \u2013 The LG Smart TV Problem [video]"}, {"id": 793402035, "item_id": 49587627, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587627", "by": "Alifatisk", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Terra have turned into this middle child in a weird spot", "excerpt": "Seeing what others have already created using GPT-6, it seem to be a new stepping stone in capabilities and overall \"intelligence\". However, some other details I think is worth bringing up is that this model is 70% more token efficient than GPT-5.6 Sol and consuming 1/3 of the tokens compared to Sol (max) in the Codex [1]. I am just thinking loudly here but, it seems like even though Astra is pricier than Sol, you mi", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-6 Astra"}, {"id": 791985792, "item_id": 49499112, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49499112", "by": "nijave", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages than Claude's usual multi paragraph word soup.", "excerpt": "Eh, I don't want the tools I use to stamp their names on everything. It's also not uncommon for me to switch between GPT and Claude or different models in the harness if one of them isn't doing well. GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages than Claude's usual multi paragraph word soup. I don't need \"Created by Claude Code 1.2.3, Opus 4.8 inside tmux ins", "context": "", "use_case": "PR bodies and commit messages", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Session URL appended to commit messages and PR descriptions by default"}, {"id": 791464336, "item_id": 49466521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49466521", "by": "romanhn", "date": "2026-08-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've so far switched from Sol to Terra but not sure even that will be sufficient.", "excerpt": "Yes and yes. I've so far switched from Sol to Terra but not sure even that will be sufficient. This also feels like it neuters a lot of the utility of banked/paid resets, since I'm not willing to re-up the weekly limit when I'm at 50% or whatever, but can no longer use it after hitting the 5h limit.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding within Codex limits", "switched_from": "Sol", "story": "Ask HN: How do you feel about the new 5H usage limit in Codex?"}, {"id": 789604226, "item_id": 49350264, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49350264", "by": "vorticalbox", "date": "2026-08-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I get great results with sol/terra", "excerpt": "It might be your prompting. My boss uses opus and gets good results when I use it always burns tokens. The other way is also true too I get great results with sol/terra but my boss does not.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code weekly limits reduce by a third tomorrow"}, {"id": 787474372, "item_id": 49217148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49217148", "by": "dools", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ve been giving Terra first bite recently and it does pretty well", "excerpt": "I have been using deepseek v4 pro almost exclusively. I was using Kimi a lot but it just nose dived. The decline started with the release of 2.7 and accelerated with the release of 3. When I need vision capabilities I use GPT 5.3 codex and if deepseek can\u2019t figure something out after a few goes I switch to GTP 5.5 or 5.6 (I\u2019ve been giving Terra first bite recently and it does pretty well, and have used Sol a couple o", "context": "", "use_case": "first-pass coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731"}, {"id": 787136016, "item_id": 49196001, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49196001", "by": "penetrarthur", "date": "2026-08-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything.", "excerpt": "I wouldn't call Terra a mid tier model. Terra xhigh is the only model I use for coding and it is good for literally everything. The difference between Terra and Sol is negligible, but it is way more limit hungry and much much slower.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2"}, {"id": 787035232, "item_id": 49189702, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49189702", "by": "ukblewis", "date": "2026-08-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Terra and use it all of the time.", "excerpt": "I don\u2019t know where you get your statistics, but I love Terra and use it all of the time. It is the default fastest model in ChatGPT/Codex today. I saw today a notice saying that the model had hit capacity briefly", "context": "", "use_case": "default fast model in ChatGPT/Codex", "switched_from": "", "story": "Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2"}, {"id": 785823281, "item_id": 49113955, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49113955", "by": "bob1029", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Run Y copies of Terra in parallel to investigate the hypothesis results", "excerpt": "Here is a rough approximation of the pipeline I use: Phase 1 - Run X copies of Luna in parallel over the user's prompt. The purpose is to generate a diverse set of hypotheses. Phase 2 - Run Y copies of Terra in parallel to investigate the hypothesis results, with each receiving them in a randomized order. Phase 3 - Run 1 copy of Sol over investigation reports. The goal is to ensure that the agent covers more initial ", "context": "", "use_case": "investigating hypotheses", "switched_from": "", "story": "Advancing the price-performance frontier with GPT\u20115.6"}, {"id": 782224704, "item_id": 48889044, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48889044", "by": "madaxe_again", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The bulk of our workload is now going via terra, which has cut our cost in half by itself, as well as improved response times by 50%", "excerpt": "The first thing I used Sol for was to assess 5.6 on our workflows - previously, it was 5.5 for everything, as the quality on simpler models was just not good enough. We\u2019re doing a mix of text and image analysis to extract explicit and implicit structured data from a steaming pile. They do work pretty much as advertised. The bulk of our workload is now going via terra, which has cut our cost in half by itself, as well", "context": "runs production workflows extracting structured data", "use_case": "text and image data extraction", "switched_from": "GPT-5.5", "story": "Migrating a production AI agent to GPT-5.6: 2.2x faster, 27% cheaper"}, {"id": 782220465, "item_id": 48888779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48888779", "by": "Leynos", "date": "2026-07-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Opus to plan and GPT 5.6 Terra to build", "excerpt": "For normal building work I use Opus to plan and GPT 5.6 Terra to build. The point is, these are not normal constrained building tasks. Perhaps I should have had more faith in Opus's ability to complete tasks like these, but it just hasn't been my experience to date. Opus and 5.5 work great within constrained user story type tasks, but I just don't have confidence in them to complete a large unbounded task like: \"find", "context": "", "use_case": "building code", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fable extended until 19 July"}]}