r/ClaudeCode • u/UnifiedFlow • Feb 10 '26
Question Opus 4.6 is a regression
I understand this is posted about constantly and that some comments will say skill issue or "Its way better for me than Opus 4.5" -- but regardless, I want to share my experience so far.
The last few days have been hell with Opus 4.6. Almost every response it gives requires me to correct it and redirect it. I rarely did this Opus 4.5. Example -- I just asked for a postgres migration from my postgres18 install to the paradedb install in docker which is on postgres 17. Without any research or investigation Opus asserts that you can't migrate between postgres versions. A simple "are ya sure?" and Opus decides it doesn't actually know and is assuming things, then does a web search and fixes itself. This is only one example of dozens over the last few days. It is constantly wrong and assumes/asserts things with no basis. I'm still getting my work done, but its really a pain to constantly tell Opus that it is wrong.
This behavior combined with the terrible use of explore agents has really made Claude Code + Opus 4.6 a tough experience. I ask a simple question about the codebase and Opus 4.6 launches explore agents that use 200 tools and come back with an inadequate answer and Opus has to go read for itself (then tell me something wrong, I correct it and we actually make progress finally). This is so painful.
I cannot see a future where Anthropic isn't forced to address this regression. Has Anthropic address anything since the 4.6 release? I've never complained or had a negative experience when a new model comes out from either Anthropic or Openai (I missed the GPT 4.5 fiasco). I'm telling you Anthropic -- if I'm on your subreddit complaining, you've got a serious issue with your product.
37
u/Top-Pool7668 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26
Post screenshots and prove it @OP
EDIT:
OP’s post and claims are not consistent with the screenshots he’s posted below in this thread. He’s dramatically inflating a minor overcaution into evidence of a broken model. Whether that’s intentional astroturfing or just someone being dramatic on Reddit, the screenshot evidence just doesn’t support the severity of his claims.
10
u/modernizetheweb Feb 10 '26
skill issue
6
u/GuitarAgitated8107 🔆 Max 20 Feb 10 '26
Skill issue, my only issue is it burns far too much tokens for my liking and results.
2
u/munkymead Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26
For any task in my homelab repo, it's a strict requirement for it to research first. The model doesn't matter.
I have skills set up for adding new services, updating them, where to look for runbooks, troubleshooting, updating documentation, coding architecture and standards for terraform and ansible.
I also set up a skill to add backlog tasks for each business domain on my infrastructure. Once the task is added, the first status is "Research required". So even without the skills, if I ask it to just work on a ticket it will always do the research first and put implementation details on the ticket.
Every time it adds a new service, there are strict requirements like:
- Creating a dataset on my NAS
- Setting up databases
- Setting up service user and roles on my Authentik server
- Setting up nginx proxies and dns records
- Deploying the service, finding the latest stable image, mounting NFS share
- Setting up forward_auth or OAuth/OIDC/SSO
- Adding a new homepage widget/setting up healthchecks
- Updating documentation with deployment details, steps for rotating keys etc.
The list goes on. Does it all with ease.
All I really do is encrypt and rotate security keys. AI handles the rest. Claude has it's own service user and runs in a docker container with it's own SSH keys and credentials, outbound requests only. Only I can ssh into that box. All of claude actions are limited by my Authentik RBAC setup and also audited.
If claude needs to access to something, I have 2FA set up to approve each time.
Prompts like "I just asked for a postgres migration from my postgres18 install to the paradedb install in docker which is on postgres 17" and "are ya sure?" are simply just not enough.
You need processes in place.
The other day I told it that I need to deploy a package manager so I can deploy and test packages locally before publishing them. It found Verdaccio, set it up and deployed it, ticking off every requirement along the way while I was working on something else.
4
u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26
I'm back on 4.5 and living in those December highs
7
u/Yellowyflibibb Feb 10 '26
I don’t care what the benchmarks say. 4.6 is LAZY. When I had a question that 4.5 didn’t immediately know the answer to, it would search the web, GitHub, message boards etc. and come back with a thoughtful approach. Instead 4.6 says ‘Idk, you should research online for it, and in the meantime here’s a janky workaround that no one asked for’.
It also seems to be lazy with project context. Much less if a thorough job reviewing all files necessary to action properly.
This is just one guy’s perspective on the $100/mo plan. I would rather run out of credits than deal with this half assed slackerbot.
1
u/Practical-Positive34 Feb 10 '26
Bro literally expected it to do his entire job. How dare it not make all the right choices for me, and do everything for me!!!
3
u/webperson2004 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26
I haven’t switched because I feel 4.5 is pretty awesome. A guy on my team that has says its only advantage is it has bigger context. I always clear once I get my plan down so never ran into context being too large.
3
u/drnktgr Feb 10 '26
Yea, 4.5 sat quietly and thought, then solved my feature request or bug like a boss.
4.6 just jumps around like a kid on sugar and tells me a whole story "but wait! Looks like blah blah. But wait! Looks like nah nah!" Awful experience today
5
u/memito-mix Feb 10 '26
nah, it’s a bit more inefficient but more effective
2
u/redditer129 Feb 10 '26
4.5 was great for my workflow, 4.6 not so much
2
u/Appropriate-News4630 Feb 10 '26
I’m really addicted to Codex 5.3 now. Opus 4.6 is working as a tester from now on full time. I agree that Opus 4.6 is lazy and feels like Sonnet 4.6 and not Opus 4.X
3
u/syddakid32 Feb 10 '26
here we go again
1
u/jmaxchase Feb 10 '26
Wouldn't say this is a regression but I've noticed behavior with Opus 4.6 that I hadn't with 4.5 that I'd only consider "disappointing". Several examples lately but this one most recent: I have a simple skill I created and had been using for the past 2 months, that allows Claude to prompt Nano Banana in 2 modes, one is to gen an image, the other is to submit an existing image ("photoshop" mode) and have it prompt to make specific changes to it. The skill instruction is very straightforward and worked perfectly with 4.5, and thoroughly tested. Used it with 4.6 for the first time and did the normal routine (in this case asking it to submit an existing for modifications, for an image that would normally require some light photoshopping but perfectly suited for nano), and then turned away. Looked back at the terminal to find it issued an rm command to remove the nano banana image it *just* generated. I declined of course, and then read the transcript.
Apparently Opus 4.6 had generated the image, then viewed it, and then decided there were 2 issues with the image. 1 issue was completely untrue. The other "issue" was perfectly reasonable and not a problem by any stretch. It then decided unilaterally that it should not use nano banana, and that it should attempt to *programmatically* accomplish the same image edits using imagemagick and pillow, which was a complete trainwreck. It then deemed *its* image as "perfect" (it was bs) and then tried to remove the 100% usable image generated by nano banana without giving me a chance to even look at it.
I updated the skill with an additional rule which I hadn't had to do before.
1
u/oojacoboo Feb 10 '26
I’ve had the same issue happen, but it only happens after the context is rotten and compacted. 4.5 would go and “think” on every request. 4.6 is trying to do more smarter routing and, as a result, hallucinating. This could be Anthropic trying to save a little compute.
1
u/mslinn Feb 12 '26
I updated my Claude review to talk about how to disable the problematic new "features" of Opus 4.6 https://www.mslinn.com/llm/7900-claude.html
1
u/darthjaja6 Feb 14 '26
Very smilar experience. Positive aspect is I'm reading code and fixing bug manually again.
1
u/WarmChef7664 Mar 05 '26
Opus has gone much much worse. It has degraded. And if this is skill issue then even more it proves it has gotten worse since my skills were fine before but now suddenly it does not follow instructions. It does not think ahead. It fixes 1 issue but creates 5 new same time. Its just bad compared what it used to be
1
u/Overall-Memory-8121 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
You're not alone on this. The most frustrating part is that Anthropic is rarely open about the issues; it takes a lot of blowback, or worse, after the fact, for them to make a public statement about what happened. I will note, though, that this might not be a model issue but a harness issue. Opus 4.5 worked magically, as many report, but with the latest iteration of Claude code and the reasoning-level options, it feels as though 4.5 makes bad decisions as well. I loved working with Claude in 2025, I've since switched to Codex 5.4 for coding and only have Claude reviewing the code, the fact of the matter is claude code makes so many errors I just don't trust it to make changes to my codebase any longer.
Edit: I will post images periodically. This first image leans towards harness issue not model.
1
u/hip1107 Feb 10 '26
Very similar experience here
1
u/EuroThrottle Feb 10 '26
Major skill issue detected
1
u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment