GLM 5.2: why I’m replacing Opus in Claude Code with this new model
About this episode
In this episode, Claire Vo discusses the capabilities and performance of the GLM 5.2 coding model through real tasks in her codebase.
I put GLM 5.2, the open-weight coding model from Z.AI, through four real tasks inside my actual codebase: a codebase architecture audit, a UI redesign, and a 45-minute autonomous bug-hunting session pulling from Sentry and Vercel logs. Total cost: $3.36 for roughly 6 million tokens, a prioritized bug-fix dashboard I’m actually shipping from, and a landing page redesign that matched Chat PRD’s design system on the first try. What you’ll learn: What “open-weight” actually means and why it matters for cost and vendor independence How to connect GLM 5.2 to Cursor and Claude Code How it performs on codebase exploration and autonomous architecture summarization in a real production Next.js app Whether GLM 5.2 can match an existing design system How the model handles a 45-minute long-running autonomous task Where GLM 5.2 stumbled The actual cost breakdown — Brought to you by: Mercury —Radically different banking loved by over 300K entrepreneurs — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) What open-weight models are and why GLM 5.2 is worth testing (01:38) GLM 5.2 model overview (04:02) Capabilities and benchmark results (06:02) How to set up GLM 5.2 in Cursor (08:37) How to set up GLM 5.2 in…
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