What
- Claude Code used to force newly launched models (like a brand-new Opus or Fable release) to run at a reduced "launch effort" level for a period after release, controlled by settings such as
unpinOpus47LaunchEffort,unpinOpus48LaunchEffort, andunpinFable5LaunchEffort. - A new mechanism now walks the list of newly-launched models (
claude-opus-4-7,claude-opus-4-8,claude-fable-5, and whateverANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_FABLE_MODELresolves to) and keeps each pinned to the launch effort level unless the matching unpin setting is turned on. - For a genuinely first-ever install of this build (no
firstStartVersionrecorded yet), the whole pin list is skipped, so brand-new installs start unpinned. - The three unpin settings were removed from the default client config store, and the model-recency list used for feature gating now includes claude-opus-4-6, claude-opus-4-7, claude-opus-4-8, and claude-sonnet-4-6.
Why
This keeps existing installs behaving the same (still pinned to a conservative effort level for brand-new models) while letting fresh installs and future models participate in feature gating and default effort without extra config.
Something disagreesSomething we can check disagrees with this entry, or the writer said they could not settle it.
The writer flagged doubt
The finding does not explain what launch-effort pinning did or what removing these fields changes in practice.