DeepSeek V4.1 Flash as the fast main loop, Opus 5.5 as the fallback
The author alternates between Opus 5.5 in Claude Code and V4.1 Flash in OMP: Flash's fast tokens give sub-10-second replies for tight iteration, and when stuck it asks Opus 5.5 or Gemini 4 for advice, or Opus runs a swarm of DeepSeeks all day to save tokens.
There are two ways that I currently stumble back and forth between when using agents. These primarily consist of Opus 5.5 through Claude Code and DeepSeek v4.1 Flash, the new checkpoint, through OMP. Because I have super fast tokens per second for DeepSeek, it seemed that trying that out as the main model for talking to was really useful. The tool calls were running fast for what I needed them for, and I could usually get responses back within 10 seconds. I could actually stay there and have the context of the question and project in my head, then very quickly get a response back based on that, and then be able to iterate very closely in the loop with the model. When it got stuck, I would ask it to ask Opus 5.5 or Gemini 4 for advice, as those are the main two that I trust. It would take a while because those models would need to do their thing, and then I would just tab over to another agent. Alternatively, I could also just look at the latest response and get enough context from that to tell the model what to do next, and then just have it go on autopilot (meaning Opus 5.5 would go on autopilot for the whole day and organize a swarm of DeepSeeks to do the mundane sort of work, so I don't waste my Opus tokens). I can't universally say which one is better, but I found that when my brain is performing the best on a certain day, having the better interactivity by using DeepSeek as the main back-and-forth model is 10x more powerful than anything slower. Can you relate?