or better yet 3.1 Flash-Lite at $0.25/1M input

That was annoying to read because there is no easy to see impact of each change. It's FL2 + Gen 13 combined.

I.e. what's the FL2 benchmark on Gen 12 compared to FL1?

I'm missing comparison of FL2 on Gen13 vs Gen12, since this would be a real win (or loss?) from the hardware upgrade. How can they justify the upgrade without this data?

Well, that's because this post is about Gen 13. In FL2 post (presumably on same Gen 12 servers), they say 25% lower latency.

"Repositioning the taskbar is one of the top asks we’ve heard from you".

Tell us why it was removed in the first place, why it takes years to put it back and it's still future promises as of March 2026. That's just a clown show.

Please post it here. I'd also like to know if 5.4 mini is better than Flash 3. Include reasoning and timing, if possible.

token/sec is meaningless without thinking level. If it's fast but keeps rambling about instead of jumping on it then it can take a very long time vs low token/sec but low/none thinking.

> What other alternatives exist in place of MCP? Arbitrary code via curl/sdks to call a remote endpoint?

cli?

for example aws cli. It's a full interface to aws API. Why would you need mcp for that?

and if you have any doubts, agents use it with a great effect even without any relevant skill. "aws help" is fully discoverable.

yes, but clis thus need self-service commands to provide guidance, and their responses need to be optimized for consumption by agents. in a sense, this is the same sort of context tax that MCP servers incur. so in my view cli and MCP are complementary tools; one is not strictly superior over the other.

> yes, but clis thus need self-service commands to provide guidance, and their responses need to be optimized for consumption by agents.

MCP vs Agent Skills:

MCPs once configured cost you tokens even when they are not used. Unlike MCPs, skills use progressive disclosure. The AI agent does not load up the entire context, if the skill is not being used.

MCPs will die off mostly for this reason alone.

> you’ll need to install the Windows app store from an enthusiast repo on Github

wsreset -i should do it

"Imagine moving the taskbar" - the state of 2026 windows is pathetic.

A lot of gemini bashing. But flash 3.0 with opencode is reasonably good and reliable coder.

I'd rate it between haiku 4.5 (also pretty good for a price) and sonnet. Closer to sonnet.

Sure, if I am not cost-sensitive I'd run everything in opus 4.6 but alas.

It's for diag and lookups. It doesn't look like it's doing edits with it.

opencode is only diags, if I am not mistaken.