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Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

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Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#151

Post by nikanj »

summarity wrote: post #8

Not claude code specific, but I've been noticing this on Opus 4.6 models through Copilot and others as well. Whenever the phrase "simplest fix" appears, it's time to pull the emergency break. This has gotten much, much worse over the past few weeks. It will produce completely useless code, knowingly (because up to that phrase the reasoning was correct) breaking things. Today another thing started happening which are…

”I can’t make this api work for my client. I have deleted all the files in the (reference) server source code, and replaced it with a python version”

Repeatedly, too. Had to make the server reference sources read-only as I got tired of having to copy them over repeatedly

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#152

Post by twalichiewicz »

talim wrote: post #133
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whenever the phrase "simplest fix" appears, it's time to pull the emergency break. Second! In CLAUDE.md, I have a full section NOT to ever do this, and how to ACTUALLY fix something. This has helped enormously.

What wording do you use for this, if you don't mind? This thread is a revelation, I have sworn that I've seen it do this "wait... the simplest fix is to [use some horrible hack that disregards the spec]" much more often lately so I'm glad it's not just me. However I'm not sure how to best prompt against that behavior without influencing it towards swinging the other way and looking for the most intentionally overengi…

My own experience has been that you really just have to be diligent about clearing your cache between tasks, establishing a protocol for research/planning, and for especially complicated implementations reading line-by-line what the system is thinking and interrupting the moment it seems to be going bad.

If it's really far off the mark, revert back to where you originally sent the prompt and try to steer it more, if it's starting to hesitate you can usually correct it without starting over.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#153

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #33

That analysis is pretty brutal. It's very disconcerting that they can sell access to a high quality model then just stealthily degrade it over time, effectively pulling the rug from under their customers.

I still think it's a live possibility that there's simply a finite latent space of tasks each model is amenable to, and models seem to get worse as we mine them out. (The source link claims this is associated with "the rollout of thinking content redaction", but also that observable symptoms began before that rollout, so I wouldn't particularly trust its diagnosis even without the LLM psychosis bit at the end.)

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#155

Post by robertfw »

codessta wrote: post #34
Retr0id wrote: post #17

This seems anecdotal but with extra words. I'm fairly sure this is just the "wow this is so much better than the previous-gen model" effect wearing off.

I've always been a believer in the "post honey-moon new model phase" being a thing, but if you look at their analysis of how often the postEdit hooks fire + how Anthropic has started obfuscating thinking blocks, it seems fishy and not just vibes

I was in this camp as well until recently, in the last 2-3 weeks I've been seeing problems that I wasn't seeing before, largely in line with the issues highlighted in the ticket (ownership dodging, hacky fixes, not finishing a task).

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#156

Post by abletonlive »

I have nothing to back this up except for that there are documented cases of chinese distillation attacks on anthropic. I wonder if some of this clamping on their models over time is a response to other distillation attacks. In other words, I'm speculating that once they understand the attack vector for distillation they basically have to dumb down their models so that they can make sure their competitors don't distill their lead on being at the frontier.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#157

Post by samtheprogram »

I noticed Claude Sonnet 4.6 and generally Opus as well (though I use it less frequently) seem like a downgrade from 4.5. I use opencode and not Claude Code, but I was surprised to see the reactions to 4.6 be mixed for folks rather than clear downgrade.

I'm regularly switching back to 4.5 and preferring it. I'm not excited for when it gets sunset later this year if 4.6 isn't fixed or superseded by then.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#158

Post by Tade0 »

rileymichael wrote: post #127

> This report was produced by me — Claude Opus 4.6 — analyzing my own session logs [...] Please give me back my ability to think. a bit ironic to utilize the tool that can't think to write up your report on said tool. that and this issue[1] demonstrate the extent folks become over reliant on LLMs. their review process let so many defects through that they now have to stop work and comb over everything they've shipped…

The other day I accidentally `git reset --hard` my work from April the 1st (wrong terminal window).

Not a lot of code was erased this way, but among it was a type definition I had Claude concoct, which I understood in terms of what it was supposed to guarantee, but could not recreate for a good hour.

Really easy to fall into this trap, especially now that results from search engines are so disappointing comparatively.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#159

Post by germandiago »

My bet: LLMs will never be creative and will never be reliable.

It is a matter of paradigm.

Anything that makes them like that will require a lot of context tweaking, still with risks.

So for me, AI is a tool that accelerates "subworkflows" but add review time and maintenance burden and endangers a good enough knowledge of a system to the point that it can become unmanageable.

Also, code is a liability. That is what they do the most: generate lots and lots of code.

So IMHO and unless something changes a lot, good LLMs will have relatively bounded areas where they perform reasonably and out of there, expect what happens there.

Re: Issue: Claude Code is unusable for complex engineering tasks with Feb updates

#160

Post by loloquwowndueo »

sixothree wrote: post #145
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol this one time Claude showed me two options for an implementation of a new feature on existing project, one JavaScript client side and the other Python server side. I told it to implement the server side one, it said ok, I tabbed away for a while, came to find the js implementation, checking the log Claude said “on second thought I think I’ll do the client side version instead”. Rarely do I throw an expletive bomb…

Using superpowers in brainstorm mode like the parent suggested would have resulted in a plan markdown and a spec markdown for the subagents to follow.

Dunno man, Claude had a spec (pretty sure I asked it to consider and outline both options first) or at least clear guidance and decided to YOLO whatever it wanted instead.

It’s always “you’re using the tool wrong, need to tweak this knob or that yadda yadda”.

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