Note
October 29, 2026
1 min read
No Free Lunch
By Cristiano Pierry
A Codex task stopped as my purchased credits ran down, a reminder that even an active turn has limits.
There is no free lunch. Or at least, mine has run out. :-)
I’d gotten used to Codex letting an active task keep going after my subscription allowance ran out. Today, during a heavy workflow with GPT-6 Astra at Ultra reasoning, my task continued using my purchased credits. As that balance ran down, the active turn stopped with a usage-limit error.
It resumed after my subscription allowance was reset, but the interruption felt like a gut punch!
No hard feelings. Compute costs money, and this makes sense to me.
But I do miss the days of a free lunch.
This writing reflects my personal perspectives on product management, AI, and content discovery. It does not represent the official position of my employer or any affiliated organization.