after using 4.8 on high + thinking, xhigh and max, I have been using opus 5 on medium with thinking / high for the last few hours of testing due to usage
- using the same workflow and guidelines and method as 4.8
- used it in the claudecode vscode extension
- using it for swift and swift ui ios app dev, and these are my experiences:
It can be slightly lazy sometimes (based on my settings): I have noticed a few times it will make some very stupid mistakes that 4.8 never would make, such as imlementing changes in the wrong file, or failing builds due to idiotic reasons so I have to be very strict about having it verify thoroughly and question itself sometimes, but not too much as in to enter a false positive loop
It uses a lot more usage compared to 4.8
- self explanatory really, it might be worth it for the output, but
- KEY - It is, from my experience, way, WAY, less consistent regarding output compared to opus 4.8 Consistency varies, even after using a well curated and maximised claude.md (containing karpathy rules and not overbloated md as well, keep in mind) It can range from performing tasks perfectly and quickly using a straightforward not overbloated method to acting like a child sometimes. -Provides summaries in a horrible looking, blocky, badly worded way needs mild intervention in how to explain and display summary data and report with easy to understand wording while maintaining the detail. Will just provide a block of text as a report on a current state or something, and yap like crazy. -Is mostly genuinely way more thorough than 4.8 in many use cases (though this can occassionally lead to issues such as overthinking a simple task and being overthorough sometimes, resulting in high usage - the reason for my current settings) I have not tested it with other things, such as design yet, but these are my key takeaways, your takeaways may be different depending on your setup and effort level , obviously, so please leave them in the comments as i am interested to see what your experience is with this, but in general i think it is an ok upgrade. submitted by /u/Kanashimations
Originally posted by u/Kanashimations on r/ClaudeCode
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