Delivering work changedbuild-with-claude/prompt-engineering/prompting-claude-fable-5-1
Nearest release: v2.1.314, published 6 hours after this site recorded the change. Shown because the two are within 24 hours of each other. Nothing here says the release caused the edit.
Recorded here
Lines+5added
Lines−5removed
From line
748
where the diff opens
First seen
1 Sep 2026
this site's first read of the page
Recorded edits14to this page, all time
The whole hunk
from line 748, old and new numbered
/
from line 748
748748
749749## Keep the conversation history append-only
750750
751Append each assistant turn to the history exactly as the API returned it, thinking blocks included, and don’t edit earlier turns between requests. For new accounts created on or after August 31, 2026, Claude Fable 5.1’s thinking blocks are valid [only in the exact conversation that produced them](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/thinking#preserved-in-conversation): a request that replays a thinking block after its prefix (the system prompt, the tool list, or any earlier message) has changed returns a 400, or drops the affected blocks if you set `thinking.block_binding.prefix_mismatch_behavior: "drop_block"` (beta, `thinking-binding-controls-2026-08-01` header). Adopt the pattern even if the check isn’t enforced for your account, so the same code works on every account.
751Append each assistant turn to the history exactly as the API returned it, thinking blocks included, and don’t edit earlier turns between requests. A thinking block is valid [only while everything before it is unchanged](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/thinking#preserved-in-conversation): the system prompt, the tool list, and every earlier message. To choose what happens to a block that fails the prefix check, set `thinking.block_binding.prefix_mismatch_behavior`, which requires the `thinking-binding-controls-2026-08-01` beta header. With `"error"`, the API rejects the request with a 400 error; with `"drop_block"`, it drops the invalid blocks. [When `prefix_mismatch_behavior` is unset](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/preserved-thinking#enforcement) covers requests that don’t set it.
752752
753Most history edits that trip the check also restart the [prompt cache](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt-caching): injecting and removing per-turn reminders, summarizing older turns in place, or changing the system prompt mid-session. Send per-turn reminders as [turn-scoped system messages](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/mid-conversation-system-messages#turn-scoped-system-messages), change instructions or tools with a [mid-conversation system message](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/mid-conversation-system-messages) instead of rewriting `system` or `tools`, and let server-side [compaction](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/compaction) or [context editing](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/context-editing) do any trimming. If you compact on the client, the simplest shape is to replace the whole history with one summary message plus the new user turn and replay nothing else: no thinking blocks carry over, so nothing fails, and the model thinks afresh on the compacted conversation (see [Custom compaction on the client](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/preserved-thinking#custom-compaction-on-the-client)). Because cache reads are now cheaper (see [Pricing](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/models/fable-5-1/whats-new-fable-5-1#pricing)), compacting early to save cost may no longer be the right cost-intelligence tradeoff on Claude Fable 5.1, so experiment with later compaction points.
753Most history edits that trip the prefix check also restart the [prompt cache](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt-caching): injecting and removing per-turn reminders, summarizing older turns in place, or changing the system prompt mid-session. Send per-turn reminders as [turn-scoped system messages](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/mid-conversation-system-messages#turn-scoped-system-messages), change instructions or tools with a [mid-conversation system message](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/mid-conversation-system-messages) instead of rewriting `system` or `tools`, and let server-side [compaction](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/compaction) or [context editing](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/context-editing) do any trimming. If you compact on the client, the simplest shape is to replace the whole history with one summary message plus the new user turn and replay nothing else. No thinking blocks carry over, so nothing fails, and the model thinks afresh on the compacted conversation (see [Compact on the client](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/preserved-thinking#custom-compaction-on-the-client)). Cache reads on Claude Fable 5.1 cost $0.25 USD per million tokens, 2.5 percent of the input price (see [Pricing](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/models/fable-5-1/whats-new-fable-5-1#pricing)). Compacting early to save cost can be the wrong tradeoff between cost and intelligence, so experiment with later compaction points.
754754
755To find edits your harness already makes, run a session with `prefix_mismatch_behavior: "drop_block"` and log `input_transformations`, as described in [How to tell whether your integration is impacted](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/preserved-thinking#how-to-tell-whether-your-integration-is-impacted), or capture the exact requests it sends over a few normal turns and confirm that consecutive requests are byte-identical up to the appended turns.
755To find edits your harness makes, run a session with `prefix_mismatch_behavior: "drop_block"` and log `input_transformations`, as described in [Check whether your code edits the prefix](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/preserved-thinking#how-to-tell-whether-your-integration-is-impacted). You can also capture the exact requests it sends over a few normal turns and confirm that consecutive requests are byte-identical up to the appended turns.
756756
757757## Writing density
758758
No line in this hunk matches that.