thinking-steering-and-cost changedbuild-with-claude/thinking-steering-and-cost
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4444Effort is the primary steering lever for thinking. Each level sets a different default for how often Claude thinks and how deeply:
4545
46| Effort level | Thinking behavior |
47| ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
48| `max` | Claude thinks the most readily and at the greatest depth, with no constraint on thinking length. |
49| `xhigh` | Claude thinks more readily and at greater depth than at `high`, suited to extended exploration. |
50| `high` (default on most models) | Claude thinks on most requests that benefit from it. Provides deep reasoning on complex tasks. |
51| `medium` (default on Claude Opus 5.5) | Claude uses moderate thinking. May skip thinking for simple queries. |
52| `low` | Claude minimizes thinking. Skips thinking for simple tasks where speed matters most. |
46| Effort level | Thinking behavior |
47| ---------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
48| `max` | Claude thinks the most readily and at the greatest depth, with no constraint on thinking length. |
49| `xhigh` | Claude thinks more readily and at greater depth than at `high`, suited to extended exploration. |
50| `high` (default on most models) | Claude thinks on most requests that benefit from it. Provides deep reasoning on complex tasks. |
51| `medium` (default on Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Haiku 5.5) | Claude uses moderate thinking. May skip thinking for simple queries. |
52| `low` | Claude minimizes thinking. Skips thinking for simple tasks where speed matters most. |
5353
5454At every level, Claude determines per request whether to think. In a tool-use loop, the first request after new user input typically carries most of the reasoning, and follow-up requests that only process tool results can skip thinking, including at `xhigh` and `max`. Thinking per request also tends to decrease as a conversation grows longer. No level guarantees a thinking block on every request.
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