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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

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to have my mind changed, yet I am not 100% convinced closing the issue as completed captures the feedback.

From the contents of the issue, this seems like a fairly clear default effort issue. Would love your input if there's something specific that you think is unaddressed.

Gotcha. It seemed though from the replies on the github ticket that at least some of the problem was unrelated to effort settings.

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of the code/context gets attached in the /bug report?

When you submit a /bug we get a way to see the contents of the conversation. We don't see anything else in your codebase.

Was there a change in Claude Code system prompt at that time that nudges Claude into simplistic thinking?

Here is a gist that tries to patch the system prompt to make Claude behave better https://gist.github.com/roman01la/483d1db15043018096ac3babf5...

I haven’t personally tried it yet. I do certainly battle Claude quite a lot with “no I don’t want quick-n-easy wrong solution just because it’s two lines of code, I want best solution in the long run”.

If the system prompt indeed prefers laziness in 5:1 ratio, that explains a lot.

I will submit /bug in a few next conversations, when it occurs next.

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

#393

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 I'm not excited for when it gets sunset later this year if 4.6 isn't fixed or superseded by then.

Opus 4.6 was definitely a mixed bag for me. Overall Id probably prefer 4.5 but only just barely and I stay on 4.6 just for the "default" nature of it. But if 4.5 is unchanged vs what Ive had on 4.6 lately then 100% I would move back to it. Ill have to test that

Same, I keep using 4.6 to get "used to it" but I find myself wanting semi-regularly.

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

#394
post #380

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.

Perhaps the subscription part of the business is so heavily subsidized that they have no choice but to reduce the cost.

Or they don’t have enough compute to handle the recent influx of traffic. I’m guessing it’s a bit of both.

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

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They run on an operating system you probably don't know all the inner workings of. And that runs on a chip with trillions of transistors.

Yeah so? Claude isn't an OS. It's the thing making my code. I don't want my codebase to be some bytecode adjacent thing that LLMs operate on.

So you stand upon a big pile of black boxes.

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

#396
post #256

Hey all, Boris from the Claude Code team here. I just responded on the issue, and cross-posting here for input. --- Hi, thanks for the detailed analysis. Before I keep going, I wanted to say I appreciate the depth of thinking & care that went into this. There's a lot here, I will try to break it down a bit. These are the two core things happening: > `redact-thinking-2026-02-12` This beta header hides thinking from th…

[flagged]

Please don't post this aggressively to Hacker News. You can make your substantive points without that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been more going on than just the default to medium level thinking - I'll echo what others are saying, even on high effort there's been a very significant increase in "rush to completion" behavior.

Thanks for the feedback. To make it actionable, would you mind running /bug the next time you see it and posting the feedback id here? That way we can debug and see if there's an issue, or if it's within variance.

  a9284923-141a-434a-bfbb-52de7329861d
  d48d5a68-82cd-4988-b95c-c8c034003cd0
  5c236e02-16ea-42b1-b935-3a6a768e3655
  22e09356-08ce-4b2c-a8fd-596d818b1e8a
  4cb894f7-c3ed-4b8d-86c6-0242200ea333
Amusingly (not really), this is me trying to get sessions to resume to then get feedback ids and it being an absolute chore to get it to give me the commands to resume these conversations but it keeps messing things up: cf764035-0a1d-4c3f-811d-d70e5b1feeef

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

#398
Yep, can confirm - just today, when debugging a failing test, Opus on high effort in CC repeatedly made stupid moves, such as running a different test instead of the failing one, and declaring that the failure is non-deterministic and cannot be reproduced. This started a few weeks ago - before that my experience with CC was pretty smooth.

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

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally the “power users” of AI are the ones who have succumbed to AI psychosis and write blog posts about orchestrating 30 agents to review PRs when one would’ve done just fine. The actual power users have an API contract and don’t give a shit about whatever subscription shenanigans Claude Max is pulling today

Uh, no. Definitely not me at all.

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