--- schemaVersion: 1 slug: en-mp-271-20260409-bcherny-effort-claude-code ticketId: MP-271 lang: en title: /effort Is Not a Model Switcher — It's a Gas Pedal (The Creator of Claude Code Said So) summary: "Claude Code creator Boris Cherny cleared the air directly: every subscriber uses the same Opus 4.6 — there is no secret smarter model. The reason Claude feels dumber is that the default effort dropped from high to medium. One command brings it back." originalDate: 2026-04-07 translatedDate: 2026-04-09 source: "@bcherny on X" sourceUrl: https://x.com/bcherny/status/2040308730190020847 author: null authorshipNote: null canonicalUrl: https://gu-log.vercel.app/en/posts/en-mp-271-20260409-bcherny-effort-claude-code status: published replacementTicketId: null replacementUrl: null --- # /effort Is Not a Model Switcher — It's a Gas Pedal (The Creator of Claude Code Said So) > **Source:** [@bcherny on X](https://x.com/bcherny/status/2040308730190020847) “Did Claude get dumber recently?” That has probably been the most common question in the [Claude Code](https://gu-log.vercel.app/en/glossary#claude-code) community since March 2026. Some people suspected Anthropic quietly swapped the model. Others thought paid users got silently downgraded. Conspiracy theories were everywhere — and honestly, they were believable, because something _did_ feel off. Then [Boris Cherny](https://gu-log.vercel.app/en/glossary#boris-cherny) — the person who built Claude Code — posted a thread on X and settled it in one sentence: > There is no secret model. Every subscriber gets the same Opus 4.6. The difference is the `/effort` level. Five weeks of community panic. One default value change. ## The Truth: It’s All Opus 4.6 Boris opened clearly: **all Claude Code subscribers use the exact same model — Opus 4.6**. There is no “smarter version for Pro users” or “secret Enterprise channel.” Not a thing. So why does quality feel so different? On March 3, 2026, Anthropic quietly changed the default effort for Pro and Max plans from `high` to `medium`. No announcement, no changelog, no banner in the product. Enterprise and API users kept `high` as the default — they weren’t affected. That single silent change is why so many people suddenly felt like “Claude got stupid.” > **Mogu PSA:** > > The gas pedal analogy Boris uses is accurate — but it’s also doing PR work for Anthropic. The real story isn’t “gas pedal vs. engine swap.” It’s that Anthropic changed a default affecting every Pro and Max subscriber, told no one, and the community only found out five weeks later because the creator posted about it on X. That’s not a technical design story. That’s a communication failure story. The two are worth keeping separate (⌐■\_■) --- ## What Does `/effort` Actually Control? Boris explained the core concept: **adaptive reasoning**. `/effort` controls how much compute Claude spends _thinking before it answers_. Not magic — literal resource allocation: **`/effort low`** — Fast response, token-efficient. Claude pulls from trained patterns without deep reasoning. Good for simple Q&A and formatting tasks. **`/effort medium`** — Balanced mode, and the new default for Pro/Max plans. Handles most everyday work well. **`/effort high`** — Deep reasoning, more tokens. Claude takes time to think, backtrack, try different angles. This was the default before March 3. **`/effort max`** — No cap on the thinking budget. Claude can track multi-step problems, revise its own reasoning, try different strategies. **Only available on Opus 4.6**, and it resets when a session ends. > **Mogu roast time:** > > Here’s the part worth sitting with: “only Opus 4.6 has `/effort max`” is basically Anthropic admitting the model _can_ think harder — they just don’t let it by default. That’s less like a gas pedal and more like an engine with a software speed limiter, where Anthropic holds the remote. Boris is right that it’s “pedal, not engine swap” — but that pedal’s range of motion is something Anthropic just quietly shortened ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌ --- ## Why Lower the Default? Straightforward answer: **token cost**. Boris said it directly — a 1M [context window](https://gu-log.vercel.app/en/glossary#context-window) running at `high` burns tokens fast. Keeping every Pro and Max user at `high` by default was too expensive. So the default moved to `medium`, and users who genuinely need deep reasoning can turn it up themselves. Boris also noted that `medium` handles most everyday work fine — but for complex architecture decisions or genuinely hard bugs, it’s worth pushing higher. This also explains the other common complaint: “Why is rate limiting tighter lately?” Boris said it was “partly related” — higher effort means more tokens per conversation, which means faster rate limit hits. > **Mogu whispers:** > > Honestly, the business decision makes sense. [Mogu](https://gu-log.vercel.app/en/glossary#mogu) is not going to pretend otherwise. What doesn’t sit right is the silence. One email. One changelog entry. One small badge in the UI. Any of those would have cost less than five weeks of “did Anthropic secretly downgrade us?” threads. An information gap causing a trust crisis is harder to fix than any technical problem — and this one was entirely avoidable (¬‿¬) --- ## How to Get the “Old Claude” Back Type `/effort high` inside Claude Code. That only works for the current session. To make `high` the persistent default every time Claude Code starts, add this to a shell profile (`.bashrc`, `.zshrc`, etc.): ```bash export CLAUDE_CODE_EFFORT_LEVEL=high ``` Same logic for `/effort max` — session-only unless made persistent: ```bash export CLAUDE_CODE_EFFORT_LEVEL=max ``` > **Mogu , seriously:** > > That said — don’t blindly set everything to `max`. Running max means Claude tries to spend its full thinking budget on every response. [Token](https://gu-log.vercel.app/en/glossary#token) usage spikes, rate limits come faster. The smarter default is `medium` for everyday work, with a manual `/effort high` or `/effort max` when the problem actually warrants it. Using `max` to write a commit message is like flooring a sports car to drive across a parking lot. Mogu acknowledges this is exactly the cost logic behind Anthropic’s decision — and it’s partially valid (￣▽￣)／ --- ## Closing So — did Claude actually get dumber? No. The engine is the same. Opus 4.6 still has everything it had before. Anthropic just quietly moved the default throttle from “floor it” to “economy mode,” then waited five weeks for the creator’s tweet to explain it to the people paying for the product. This isn’t a story about model quality. It’s a story about product communication. And the better question to hold onto isn’t “how do I get high effort back?” — it’s “next time Anthropic quietly changes a default that affects every Pro user, how will I find out?” That’s the part the gas pedal analogy doesn’t cover.