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Anthropic appears to be A/B testing reduced effort levels in Claude Code

Hacker News Saturday 22 August 2026, 16:58 UTC By matthieu_bl 1 min read
Key Points

update: it's server-side, not the app anthropic enrols fable 5 sessions on claude code 2.1.236+ into an experiment that shrinks the effort scale, older versions and opus 5 are left alone probably an a/b test, so not everyone will see it if "high" feels like "low" for you, you're in the test group holy fuck anthropic, you guys are unbearable sometimes

update: it's server-side, not the app anthropic enrols fable 5 sessions on claude code 2.1.236+ into an experiment that shrinks the effort scale, older versions and opus 5 are left alone probably an a/b test, so not everyone will see it if "high" feels like "low" for you, you're in the test group holy fuck anthropic, you guys are unbearable sometimes
Claude (PERSON) opus 5 (EVENT)
Originally published by Hacker News Read original →

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