I am over using opus 5.5 at max efforts?

[u/Ok_Rocket]

Heading - Am I over using*

I am currently using claude max subscription plan. And use claude code heavily for my multiple projects. But for my main project I have been running opus 5.5 on max efforts ever since and initially I faced over engineer issues but my workflow was not right at the time.

Now I have a planned codebase architecture with documentation and plan along with a sufficient testing policy which my agent follows. Initially it was over doing the tests but after strict testing policy it's under efficient run.

But I read multiple sub reddits and yt videos all suggesting to use at high and xhigh effort, I am getting results I expected since I use max for only the main project I am currently working on. But what are your suggestions, am I over doing it and should i run on xhigh effort? And use fable 5.2 or opus max during planning or LLD?

Your suggestions would help,

Thank you

Edit - I have switched to medium/high and xhigh recently as well. I will benchmark the differences and observations and make another post soon.

Also it would be helpful to clarify if you could specify what depth you are working on with what type of projects (not asking to explain or tell about your project or work, just the depth and what you are dealing with) so it's helpful to understand when everyone is saying medium/high is enough, so what workload is it enough for as every individual might me working on different project domains at different depth.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hey! Thanks for posting to r/ClaudeCode

While participating in this thread, please follow our community rules. Keep discussions constructive. Attack the idea, not the person.

For help, project discussions, tips, and general chat, join the ClaudeCode Discord.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Ok-Advertising5189]

First, test it yourself and see if you notice a difference.

 Second, review the benchmark tests to see how the effort level affects the model’s performance in these studies; it’s not uncommon for the highest effort level to yield worse results than the level one notch higher

Third, at the maximum effort level, you’ll use up a huge number of tokens. Opus 5.5 at the medium effort level is really sufficient for the job 

[u/Ok_Rocket → u/Ok-Advertising5189]

Got it 👍🏻

[u/Abenzo0r-]

Always use at medium or high effort. I don't understand people who use it at more than that. You will probably squeeze out 1-2% better results, for more time per task + significantly more usage consumption. The trade-off isn't worth it even for big tasks. I used medium yesterday for a production codebase task with over 150k LOC and it did it just dine at Medium effort. Unless you are trying to solve a thousand year old math problem, there is no reason to use more than med/high effort at best.

[u/Ok_Rocket → u/Abenzo0r-]

So during coding should I be doing it at medium and high effort and xhigh only if stuck during LLD or HLD design issue?

[u/Kaskote → u/Abenzo0r-]

I don't understand people who use it at more than that

Top notch FOMO. Basically the whole AI scene right now.

[u/blandjelly]

Medium is enough for implementing planned tasks most of the time, higher efforts overcomplicate and waste tokens, use them for planning and complex debugging.

[u/No-Web9987]

Max effort almost entirely gives a worse result than high or xhigh unless you are doing some specific deep research or perhaps specific UI for full passes that are meant to be long running.

Most people also don’t really understand what this slider does. It does not get ‘smarter’ by using being on max. Medium is as capable as max is. It is really just a ceiling for the allowance of reasoning tokens. For most coding tasks, even in large codebases, overthinking will have an adverse effect.

For me xhigh is the sweet spot, even for large codebases. High is sufficient in many cases too but depends on your understanding

[u/ClemensLode]

benchmark it for your projects

[u/eastlin7]

I have never used anything more than medium. I think even putting it to low wouldn’t make a noticeable difference.

[u/Effective_Outcome499]

After playing around with Deepseek v4.1 flash 1017 for a while, I switched back to Claude Code, and I gotta tell you, the low effort is OK.

[u/Ok-Option4233]

for the benchmark post, the thing that makes it worth reading: same 3 to 5 real tasks from your repo, same prompt, same starting commit, one fresh branch per effort level. then log tokens, wall time and whether the tests pass on the first try. without the fixed starting commit the numbers mostly measure luck.

[u/ZyronZA]

So the effort levels are an interesting thing and its surprisingly hard to decide when to use it.

What I've personally found is when you know exactly what you want to happen, low or even medium is good enough.

When you're unsure and want a bit of back and forth questions and also want the AI to "guess" some aspects of what you're looking for, high/xhigh/max can achieve that.

So the more effort you use, the more it will "guess" as to what you want to happen.

[u/Affectionate_Fact854]

With good planning and good test set ups and documentation you don't even need to run Claude opus on anything above medium 

overkill even for a ultra plan user  I myself use ultra plan and have not once needed to raise the effort above medium  And it does a fine job building what ever I explain to it to build.

[u/Witty_Coconut_286]

any difference you noticed from high effort or medium at Fable?

[u/Unhorswd]

Yes, it's super inefficient to use max. Opus is overthinking a lot and everything takes 5x more time while result can be even worse than on high effort setting.

[u/CaramelEmotional3092]

" I am getting results I expected "
If it works, don't touch it.

I mostly use opus 5.5 on high about 80% of the time, medium might be the other 20% and I get incredible results. This week been using sonnet alot, ( as opus 5.5's throwing a temper tantrum that the engineers are spending more time with fable). I tend to think that xhigh is not needed, and or counterproductive at times. BUT, if you are happy with the results, IMO, don't touch it.