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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

#721

Post by withinboredom »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #719
withinboredom wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be worth extracting the system prompt and then patching it. TBH, that's what I was expecting when I saw the gist.

This might be more complex than I imagined. It seems Claude Code dynamically customizes the system prompt. They also update the system prompt with every version so outright replacing it will cause us to miss out on updates. Patching is probably the best solution. https://github.com/Piebald-AI/claude-code-system-prompts https://github.com/Piebald-AI/tweakcc

Interesting. So literally triggering any of these changes probably invalidates the cache as well…

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

#722

Post by torginus »

richardjennings wrote: post #266
bcherny wrote: post #209

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…

I was not aware the default effort had changed to medium until the quality of output nosedived. This cost me perhaps a day of work to rectify. I now ensure effort is set to max and have not had a terrible session since. Please may I have a "always try as hard as you can" mode ?

this might be just my impression, but I feel like most people are using CC for fixing their React frontends, and they prefer the decreased latency and less tokens spent as opposed to performing well on extremely difficult problems?

That said there's still an issue of regression to the mean. What the average person likes, as determined by metrics, is something nobody actuallt likes, because the average is a mathematical construct and might not describe any particular individual accurately.

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

#723

Post by svnt »

JohnMakin wrote: post #561
exfalso wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's to prevent distillation. Duh

of course that’s the reason but don’t pretend it’s some user guided decision

They don’t want to officially disclose the reality because while some users will understand the realities of protecting a product while innovating, many will just realize it means one can go looking for claude 4.5 performance elsewhere.

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

#724

Post by bwfan123 »

tomwojcik wrote: post #704
noxa wrote: post #179

I'm the author of the report in there. The stop-phrase-guard didn't get attached but here it is: https://gist.github.com/benvanik/ee00bd1b6c9154d6545c63e06a3... You can watch for these yourself - they are strong indicators of shallow thinking. If you still have logs from Jan/Feb you can point claude at that issue and have it go look for the same things (read:edit ratio shifts, thinking character shifts before the red…

I can't believe that's where we're at, as software devs. I miss predictable outputs, state machines. All those LLM (prompt) based rules make no sense to me. Same with AI WAL. All of it, at some point, will fail.

> I can't believe that's where we're at, as software devs

Agree wholeheartedly.

The premise of the bug did not make any sense to me. For instance, "unusable for complex engineering tasks", why would someone who understands these tools use them for complex engineering tasks ? Also, this phrase in the bug appears too jargon-ny "Extended Thinking Is Load-Bearing for Senior Engineering Workflows" - what does this even mean ? Am I the only one who is looking at this with bewilderment. I think there is group of folks producing almost-working proof of concept code with these tools, and will face a reckoning at some point - as the bug illustrates. I see this as a storm in a teacup with wonder and amusement.

There is also a larger commentary on: when you dont understand why things work (ie, have a causal model), you wont know why they broke (find root causes). We are at a point in our craft where we throw magic dust and chant spells at claude and hope and pray it works.

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

#726

Post by svnt »

xvector wrote: post #566
giwook wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it's still gone and you should be using effort level now for this.

No, ultrathink is back and it's the same thing as high effort for the message in which it is included

Right but wasn’t high effort the default effort before? So ultrathink is gone in all but name.

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

#727

Post by erikpau »

bcherny wrote: post #209

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…

I'd hate to be that guy, but Opus not a very smart model when the effort is set to anything below high. I think, given the feedback from the community, this would be an obvious signal. However, moving the effort to anything beyond medium is a huge token burn. These issues didn't exist, or at least not this persistent, before the last 2 weeks. I, and perhaps a million or so other developers, would ask you to reconsider this thinking. I understand you need to run a business, but so do we, and Claude Opus is genius with a drinking problem, and you never really know upfront if it's drunk or not, but it's generally quite clear after a few minutes.

Other models, such as K2, GLM-5.1, and "the other one" seem to far less drunk than your approach, and you're losing fans quickly if you keep making these kind of changes to the tools or models.

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

#728

Post by kouteiheika »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #509
bcherny wrote: post #209

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…

> Under the hood, by setting this header we avoid needing thinking summaries, which reduces latency. You can opt out of it with `showThinkingSummaries: true` in your settings.json (see [docs]( https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings#available-settings )). Can I just see the actual thinking (not summarized) so that I can see the actual thinking without a latency cost? I do really need to see the thinking in some form…

> Can I just see the actual thinking (not summarized) so that I can see the actual thinking without a latency cost?

You can't, and Anthropic will never allow it since it allows others to more easily distill Claude (i.e. "distillation attacks"[1] in Anthropic-speak, even though Athropic is doing essentially exactly the same thing[2]; rules for thee but not for me).

[1] -- https://www.anthropic.com/news/detecting-and-preventing-dist...

[2] -- https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/g-s1-87367/anthropic-authors-...

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

#729

Post by sroussey »

bcherny wrote: post #209

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…

> Roll it out with a dialog so users are aware of the change and have a chance to opt out

Here is the issue. Force a choice instead. Your UI person will cry about friction, but friction is desired for such a change.

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

#730

Post by naasking »

hackboyfly wrote: post #560
berkanunal wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if all service providers were behaving like this. > Ahh, sorry we broke your workflow. > We found that `log_level=error` was a sweet spot for most users. > To make it work as you expect it so, run `./bin/unpoop` it will set log_level=warn

Yeah it’s stupid. What makes me more annoyed HN users here actually simping for Claude. “Hi thank you for Claude Code even though you nerfed the subscriptions, btw can I get red text instead of green?”

They're a business. The alternative to keep costs in check would to ask you for more money, and you'd likely be even more upset with that.
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