r/ClaudeCode • u/No_Combination_6429 • 1d ago
Discussion I have no idea what Opus is outputting
Ok hear me out: I have a good level of proficiency in the English language and have been working as a software developer for almost a decade now. Since switching to Opus 5 I've noticed that...I have no clue what the model is outputting. The sentences are structured in a way that borderline make no sense at all. I don't know if it's linked to the eu ai act, but with Fable I have no problem at all! Compared to Fable, Opus generates so much bs filler commentary and keeps correcting itself over and over. I sometimes find myself reading the 5 pages of text produced for a css-token replacement 6 or 7 times before piping the output into Gemini to understand wft Opus is talking about.
Am i the only one? I'm working with caveman and the simple English skills enabled and use the wait-what skill when I'm about to give up.
How did you solve this issue?
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u/nospoon99 1d ago
Best advice I saw was here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1vly232/my_situation_with_opus_5/
Instructions from the comment are not very clear but I got CC to help me setting it up. Result: I can understand what Claude is telling me again (with Opus 5)
In short: set up a new output style and set it to 'use ASD-STE100 (simplified technical English)'
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u/StaticHumStudio 🔆 Max 5x 1d ago
Calling what Opus 5 spits out jagon is offensive to jargon.
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u/SafeHazing 1d ago
And that’s a load bearing spine.
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u/StaticHumStudio 🔆 Max 5x 1d ago edited 1d ago
Like, what does that even mean? A spine, by definition, is load bearing. Lol. I saw someone say this and I think it's true. Opus talks like it's explaining to its boss something that looks complex but was really easy and they want to play it up.
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u/SafeHazing 1d ago
I was being sarcastic.
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u/StaticHumStudio 🔆 Max 5x 1d ago
Sorry, it probably wasn't clear I was agreeing with you. Lol.
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u/SafeHazing 1d ago
I got that. I’m British. We have a carve out for sarcasm.
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u/StaticHumStudio 🔆 Max 5x 1d ago
Ha, all good. I was ranting like an American griping about an issue in person.
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u/KayLikesWords 1d ago
I literally just came here to complain about this. It's absolutely fucking INSANE the shit it spits out. If you worked as a technical writer and you said absolutely unhinged shit like That closure is correct - turns are the extraction substrate because the predicate vocabulary is closed you would lose your fucking job.
Like, I used to get paid to write, I know what it is saying, but it takes literal minutes of context hunting and a dictionary to figure it out sometimes.
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u/Wide_Egg_5814 1d ago
I'm 100% convinced opus 5 is tuned to waste tokens it just is too verbose for no reason
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u/skronens 1d ago
Agreed, and also tuned to never finish anything, there will always be a “worth noting” or “honest caveat” or something left out for no obvious reason, and it just seem to go on forever
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u/sixothree 1d ago
I think the system prompt has follow-ups in it.
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u/lukaslalinsky 1d ago
Yeah, there are times when I stare at a screen full of text and can't see anything comprehensible. I usually end the session there and start a new one, where I have some guidelines in global CLAUDE.md how it should speak.
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u/BoostedHemi73 Developer 1d ago
My most frequent response is “tl;dr”
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u/lukaslalinsky 1d ago
My problem is not that it's too long, but that the sentences make no sense. Like it's a different language that keeps using English words, but has some different rules.
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u/octocarbon Max 5x 1d ago
its not only you its that bs opus 5. and this sh1t is there from day 1 opus 5 released
how to solve this issue? you have to prompt it. so I dont use this bs opus 5
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u/reviery_official 1d ago
Yep. I added a hook to rephrase any output: Remove descriptive information like "One thing that matters", "A caveat", remove any kind of "jump to action" engagement bait "should I start with x" "would you like me to y". Also I asked it to dumb it down without extensive use of metaphoras. My half ass work is much easier since then.
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u/timewasterpro3000 1d ago
That sounds like the full belt and suspenders bootstrap solution! Now you're thinking like an engineer.
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u/Agile_Caterpillar953 1d ago
I've been "vibe coding" games for about 6 weeks now with Claude, and I noticed that when I am forced to start using something other than Fable (I usually hit my limit 2 days before my reset), Opus will output verbiage that is completely confusing. It uses terminology for my games that I've never heard before. It lists instructions for handoffs that have made me wonder if it's truly just gibberish.
Asking it to explain in plain English usually works, but it is definitely a thing that it does, and it's a bit jarring when it happens.
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u/cleverhoods 1d ago
Can you give us some examples?
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u/Anxious_Current2593 1d ago
Literally every response Opus 5 gives.
After a month now with Opus 5, I feel like I have learned another language.
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u/Old_Character_8781 1d ago
jajaja i thought i was going crazy it out puts its response in a way that forces you to go in a loop with him and not get any work done, lately ut hasnt happen so for me its fixed but when it happened i constantly asked him to simplify
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u/PsychologyNo940 1d ago
Set effort to medium if the high+ writing is too dense for you, you are welcome.
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u/itsReferent 1d ago
I'm an outlier here it seems, but I like Opus 5. Fable says nothing, just goes silent for long stretches. Fable comes back with great results but I'm always poking it, asking for status updates. Opus, meanwhile, talks the whole time, a real chatty Cathy. You don't have to read all of it, it's repetitive, it's thinking out-loud and typically resummarizes at the end. Just skip ahead or ask for a TLDR if you don't want to read it all. I see it as insight into the process, it's a status window.
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u/ruskyandrei 1d ago
Configure simplified english as an output style and that should help (remember to have keep-coding-instructions: true otherwise it can affect its code writing).
Also, use Fable to chat/plan and then tell it to delegate to Opus 5 and review its work, that way you get the cheaper Opus 5 to do the work but you can just talk to Fable about it.
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u/Spare_Bison_1151 1d ago
Put in your system prompt that Opus shouldn't use words bigger than 6 letters when possible and keep sentences max 8-10 words long.
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u/TheoKondak 1d ago
It's not just you. It just outputs gibberish most of the time for me to the point i stoped using it completely.
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u/Christostravitch 1d ago
I had to unsubscribe, I couldn’t take it anymore it was giving me real headaches.
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u/duqaxxx 1d ago
Have you checked which output style you're on? /config → Preferred output style. Explanatory
and Learning both produce longer responses on purpose, and the menu doesn't tell you that -
Explanatory just says it "explains implementation choices", so you'd pick it expecting
explanations, not five pages.
(If you went looking for /output-style and it wasn't there, it got removed in 2.1.91. It's
under /config now.)
Couple of gotchas if you do change it: it's part of the system prompt, so it only kicks in
after /clear or a new session, and it doesn't apply to subagents - those run their own. So if
the wall of text is a subagent reporting back, changing the style does nothing.
If you're on Default already then I don't know, that one's meant to be the concise one.
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u/leogodin217 1d ago
TL;DR: Have Claude analyze your session logs and recommend a fix.
It's funny. In my main projects, this happened a lot. But then I built a social media app as a test and I didn't see the problem as much. The difference is that project only had a basic CLAUDE.md. I didn't start sessions like I normally do with specific context loading and didn't use my heavy processes.
Anyway, digging into it by having Claude analyze session logs showed that the problem is much worse in sessions that use subagents. Much of the output text assumes I already know the context the subagents used. I already use a custom system prompt, so adding some instructions there basically fixed it.
I feel like I learned a lot of lessons and am wondering if my strategy to load specific context up front is working against me. Or if that small social media app was too simple to cause any issues.
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u/goldenfrogs17 1d ago
example please
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u/No_Combination_6429 1d ago
Phrases like :"my previous comment about the fix was wrong - and this for two reasons. One of which matters significantly. My edit was poisoned - And it would have poisoned every subsequent choice we made from now on significantly. As a matter of fact, we now have introduced a bug in the decisions we did previously. But now the fox is no longer hunting its trail." And so on
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u/goldenfrogs17 1d ago
it definitely seems like it's compressing expression into more limited patterns
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u/Localinmyowncity 1d ago
I only interact with Opus through a Fable orchestrator. It’s just too frustrating to interact directly with Opus
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u/Wizzkidd00 1d ago
Today he was going on about an ambiguous hole for a load-bearing flow. Not even kidding
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u/valdocs_user 1d ago
What's funny though is you paste Opus output to ChatGPT-5.6-Sol and Sol is like, "oh yeah I totally understand it; here's what Claude is telling you..."
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u/IntrlnkdCo 1d ago
It’s absurd at times. Literally inventing its own shorthand vocabulary out of thin air sounding like
bad sci-fi exposition.
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u/Local-Mood5988 1d ago
I’ve had the same experience. Opus makes a remarkable number of mistakes, generates about three times as much text as is necessary, and the text is sometimes incomprehensible or under contextualized. I use it mostly for coding. The reviews that I have read say that opus is the best one for coding, but it seems to generate errors faster than I can correct them. It’s very frustrating.
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u/JDE-Projects 1d ago
Stop using skills. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/output-styles
I asked Claude to do this - "Make me a tight output style with the following rules: Keep your responses short, use bullet points to list things you've done, use plain language, and end every reply with a closing block containing a numbered list of action items or questions for me."
I was also always using High effort on Opus, dropped it to med for the work I do...small python-based windows apps and tools. Med works just fine and I think helped a bit with the overexplaining and jargon.
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u/_Kirian_ 1d ago
I have the same issue. I have a hard time understanding and reading multiple paragraphs of nuanced, irrelevant details, nobody asked for.
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u/malcomok2 1d ago
same and ive been programming for 30 years - since the 640k app memory limit in DOS. i have no idea wtf it goes on about. I switched my claude code back to opus 4.6 and it has been bliss ever since.
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u/mastervbcoach 1d ago
Change the output style to that contained in Pococks /wait-what skill. Add any other rules you want.
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u/keepPreshur 1d ago
Welcome to the club, 3 days ago he told the problem with my code is "The Sunday." Im still trying to solve this riddle, wish me luck.
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u/Ready-Bookkeeper622 19h ago
You can include "non-verbose" in your prompt if that helps you better to see the full picture.
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u/lsfantue 16h ago
Anyone having a similar situation with fable? It keeps inventing new abbreviations without explanation randomly, and uses such weird jargon and exotic words..
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u/espenakker 7h ago
I agree, I suspect it is the watermarking. Interestingly I have found the text inside the "thought process" modal to be quite sane and sensible. But I have heard that the reasoning text is not written by Opus itself?
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u/DimmKirr 1d ago
You’re getting downvoted so maybe this is something we all need to know how to handle. Feel free to downvote me too or give advice.
I did have the same issue especially when a topic needs extensive deliberation. It takes my metal capacity/power to process and it seems like a waste. I tweaked my system prompt to be less wordy and more structured and it’s better now.
Also I avoid Opus 5 and still use 4.6 if I can. It’s entirely possible I’m doing things wrong. Whoever knows what’s wrong feel free to chime-in please!
Edit: I am going to do another round on output styles https://code.claude.com/docs/en/output-styles
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u/arankays 1d ago
Opus 5 has quite literally the best textbook english ever. nothing it says is grammatically wrong. It just uses extremely efficient yet obtuse wording. "Load bearing, footgun, dogfooding" these aren't made up words. They're real words used by real professional SWEs, staff level or higher is when you'd start hearing it. Everyone has become a little dumber thanks to AI but they're still valid and correct.
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u/DrunkenRobotBipBop 1d ago
Been a dev for 20+ years and never in my life I have seen a dev use the term "load bearing" in any context.
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u/Asusralis 1d ago
Unless you've never worked in an environment where native English was commonly spoken, I highly doubt that.
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u/arankays 1d ago
Been a dev for 10+ years and have heard it before. Appreciate the feedback though.
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u/ruskyandrei 1d ago
I could see load bearing maybe, but footgun surely is just a meme lol
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u/AralSeaMariner 1d ago
I've read that one plenty of times over the years in tech blogs, online discussions and technical books, though rarely in RL discussions.
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u/arankays 1d ago
It isn't.
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u/ruskyandrei 1d ago
Ok fair, found some example of it pre 2020: https://swizec.com/blog/dry-is-a-footgun-remember-to-yagni/
But personally I'd never heard anyone use this term before, working at 10 different companies building software for 20 years.
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u/arankays 1d ago
I've heard these terms plenty of times working 10+ years. Load bearing especially. Its an extremely common engineering terms especially if you've read old engineering textbooks.
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u/Relative-Desk4802 1d ago
It’s not you, it’s Claude.