Opus 4.7 in Claude Code: Default to xhigh Effort
Use xhigh effort (new default) for Opus 4.7 in Claude Code to boost reasoning on agentic coding tasks like API design and code review, while adapting prompts for less verbose responses, fewer tool calls, and adaptive thinking.
Prioritize xhigh Effort for Superior Coding Performance
Opus 4.7 excels at handling ambiguity, bug finding, code review, and long sessions compared to 4.6, but its updated tokenizer and increased thinking at higher efforts raise token usage—tune via effort levels. Default to xhigh (new level between high and max) for most agentic work like API/schema design, legacy migrations, and large codebase reviews, as it optimizes reasoning-latency tradeoffs. Use high for routine tasks, max for deepest analysis, medium/low for quick responses. Toggle levels mid-task to control costs; existing users auto-upgrade to xhigh. Treat Claude as a delegable engineer, not line-by-line pair programmer, to leverage interactive sessions where it reasons more post-user turns for better coherence.
Embrace Adaptive Thinking Over Fixed Budgets
Replace fixed thinking budgets with adaptive thinking: the model optionally thinks per step, skipping on simple queries to speed responses and allocate tokens efficiently—now less prone to overthinking. Prompt explicitly for thinking rate if needed, e.g., 'Think step-by-step only for complex analysis.' This cuts latency in agentic runs while maintaining quality.
Prompt for Changed Behaviors to Maximize Results
Opus 4.7 calibrates response length to complexity (shorter for lookups, longer for analysis)—specify style/length with positive examples, not negatives. It reasons more and calls tools/subagents less judiciously; for aggressive tool use, instruct 'Use search/file read when verifying facts across files.' For parallel work, prompt 'Spawn subagents for fanning out across multiple files/items, not single functions.' These shifts yield better outcomes on long tasks like multi-file changes or debugging; start at xhigh and iterate.