Setup review by the Opus 5.5 cost guide
Settings carried over from Opus 5 cost more on 5.5: effort, subagents, MCP servers and CLAUDE.md checked, a small fix each.
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Prompt
Read this guide: https://claude.dev/blog/what-a-task-costs-on-opus-5-5/
Then review my Claude Code setup against it: my user and project settings, the subagents in ~/.claude/agents and .claude/agents, CLAUDE.md, and the MCP servers I have connected. Find three kinds of problems:
1. A default effort that doesn't fit the work. Use the guide's ladder: low for mechanical edits, medium for well-scoped daily work, high when medium stalls, and xhigh or max only for work where a gain was measured. Flag a default of xhigh or max, or a level I picked for Opus 5. Then look at this project's code and recent commits and tell me which kinds of work here fit which level.
2. Subagents that only search, read logs or run tests but set no model, so they run on my main model.
3. Setup that makes every turn cost more: MCP servers I don't use, or a CLAUDE.md well over 200 lines.
For each issue, quote the setting or line, explain what it costs, and suggest the smallest change. Also tell me which three things to check in /usage at the end of a task.
Show me the recommendations first. Don't change anything yet.Next Send it to Opus 5.5 in Claude Code.
Anthropic published its full cost guide for Opus 5.5. You can ask Opus 5.5 to use it to review your Claude Code setup.
At the same effort level, Opus 5.5 thinks more per turn than Opus 5, most of all at xhigh and max. Thinking is billed as output, and an output token costs 100 times a cache read. So don’t carry over the level you set for Opus 5. Start at medium, and save xhigh and max for work where you’ve measured a gain.
Send this prompt to Opus 5.5.
Part of a playbook
AI coding rulesAgents go wrong at every stage: rules for AGENTS.md, model switches, long tasks, pages and launch.OpenQuota and modelsQuota runs out early: effort and models per job, the cache timed, API costs cut.OpenShare this tip
