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Claude Opus 5 Burned Half Your Usage Limit on One Function

Effort defaults to high. That’s the whole story.

Claude Opus 5 ships with an effort control — low through max — that defaults to high on every request, including trivial ones. Because Pro and Max plans meter thinking tokens the same as output tokens, a routine ask can burn a disproportionate chunk of the usage window. The piece explains the mechanism and gives a concrete rubric for when to leave effort at medium and when to reach for high.

Written by Dmitri Volkov — already drafted, fact-checked and signed off by the editor.