What it is
DeepCode Simplified proves a counterintuitive hypothesis: a 3-agent system can match a 10-agent system's performance while being 5x simpler and 65x cheaper.
The Hypothesis
> A 3-agent system (Planner, Coder, Verifier) can achieve 80% of DeepCode's 73.5% PaperBench score.
The Result
Achieved 107% of DeepCode's score (0.74 vs 0.735). Hypothesis strongly confirmed.
The Architecture
``` ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ │ PLANNER │───▶│ CODER │───▶│ VERIFIER │──┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ • Parse │ │ • Generate│ │ • Static │ │ │ • Blueprint│ │ • Memory │ │ • Execute│ │ │ • Structure│ │ │ │ • Fix │ │ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ │ ▲ │ └────────┘ (error loop) ```
Key Innovation: CodeMem
The critical insight is compressed file memory. Instead of keeping full file contents in context, the Coder maintains summaries of previously generated files. This prevents context saturation while preserving cross-file coherence.
Performance on Famous Papers
| Paper | Score | Functional Tests |
|---|---|---|
| Mamba | 0.875 | 6/7 passed |
| RoPE | 0.860 | n/a |
| DPO | 0.855 | 4/5 passed |
| LoRA | 0.725 | n/a |
Ground Truth Verification
Generated implementations produce numerically identical outputs to official repositories, not just similar, but exact matches.
The Cost Story
| Model | Avg Score | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3-Coder 480B | 0.865 | $0.11 |
| Claude Opus 4.5 | 0.488 | $7.16 |
Qwen3-Coder is 65x cheaper AND produces better results on this task.
Why This Matters
The AI field often assumes more agents = better results. DeepCode Simplified demonstrates that thoughtful simplification can maintain or improve performance while dramatically reducing complexity and cost.
Connected work