Claude Opus 5.5 Rewards Higher Effort

Higher effort is becoming a practical quality dial, not just a benchmark setting—but developers should optimize for task type rather than blindly choosing maximum compute.

• –Terminal-Bench results show substantial gains on complex, multi-step terminal tasks as effort increases.
• –Extra reasoning is most valuable for security reviews, hardware work, code audits, and tasks with hidden edge cases.
• –Low effort remains useful for fast drafts and iterative feature development.
• –Higher effort also increases assumptions, latency, and token consumption, which can make max effort wasteful on well-specified work.
• –The best production pattern is likely staged: low effort for implementation, high effort for verification and testing.