I've only tried Claude Code with an external model once (Kimi K2) but it performed poorly.
I generally get great 1-shot (one input and the final output after all tasks are done) comments. I have moved past claude code though I am using the CLI itself with another model although I was using claude code and my reason for switching isn't that claude was a bad model it's just that it was expensive and I have access to larger models for cheaper. The CLI is the real power not the model itself per-se. Opus does perform a little better than others.
It's totally made it so I can do the code that I like to do while it works on other things during that time. I have about 60-70 different agent streams going at a time atm. Codebases sizes vary, the largest one right now is about 200m tokens (react, typescript, golang) in total and it does a good job. I've only had to tell it twice to do something differently.
But because the economics don't translate the way VCs claim. When you replace a $50,000 employee with AI, you don't capture $50,000 in software revenue. You capture $5,000 if you're lucky. """
So you are saying, AI does replace labour.
Then refuse implementing it. Have some dignity for God's sake.