Cline v4.0.9 Adds GPT-5.6 ChatGPT Models, Fixes Token Count Over-Reporting

Cline, the AI coding assistant VS Code extension, released v4.0.9 on July 16, 2024, adding support for GPT-5.6 ChatGPT subscription models and fixing token count accuracy issues.

What Changed

The update adds support for GPT-5.6 ChatGPT subscription models, though specific details about GPT-5.6's capabilities were not disclosed in the release notes.

The most significant fix addresses token count over-reporting from OpenAI-compatible providers. According to the changelog, Cline was incorrectly handling cumulative usage snapshots, leading to inflated token usage reports. This has been corrected in v4.0.9.

Additional changes include:

• Shortened and softened error messaging when Cline hits the consecutive mistake limit during code generation
• Fixed loading of skills from files saved as UTF-8 with a byte-order mark (BOM)

Technical Details

The release was manually created due to a GitHub API outage. While the automated workflow successfully published v4.0.9 to the VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX Registry, API degradation prevented the release creation step from completing normally.

The full changelog is available comparing commits between v4.0.8 and v4.0.9 (commit hash b560f1f).

What This Means

The token count fix is particularly relevant for developers using Cline with third-party OpenAI-compatible API providers, who may have been seeing artificially inflated usage metrics. This could have led to confusion about actual API costs or concerns about unexpectedly high token consumption.

The addition of GPT-5.6 support suggests OpenAI may have released new ChatGPT subscription-tier models, though no official announcement about GPT-5.6 has been made public as of this release. This could indicate early access or a specific subscription tier model variant.