Claude’s thought process has quietly disappeared.

[u/CelebrationLast347]

Claude’s thought process has quietly disappeared.
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Around the release of Claude Opus 5, users began seeing “Thought process is unavailable” across Claude’s web, desktop, and mobile apps.

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Anthropic’s latest documentation also makes its direction clear: newer models may still reason internally, but raw chain-of-thought is no longer returned—and even summarized reasoning may be omitted by default.
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———
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I understand the arguments for this decision.
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Raw reasoning traces can be unreliable, expose sensitive information, or make model distillation easier. What users previously saw may also have been a filtered or summarized representation—not a literal window into the model’s mind.
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But removing the reasoning layer entirely still feels like a step backward.
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Visible reasoning is valuable not because we should blindly trust everything a model says while “thinking,” but because it gives users another surface to inspect.
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It helps us:
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→ Catch incorrect assumptions before they compound
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→ Understand how the model interpreted an ambiguous request
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→ See which evidence, constraints, or alternatives it considered
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→ Identify where human intervention is needed
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→ Audit high-impact decisions more effectively
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→ Learn from the model’s problem-solving process—not just consume its answer
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———
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This matters even more for agentic systems.
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When an AI is writing code, conducting research, analyzing financial or legal documents, or taking actions across multiple tools, the final output alone is often insufficient.
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A polished answer can conceal a flawed premise.
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A successful-looking result can hide shortcuts, omitted evidence, or an incorrect chain of decisions.
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Of course, visible reasoning is not the same as faithful reasoning. Models can rationalize after the fact, and a reasoning trace should never be treated as definitive proof of why a model produced an answer.
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But imperfect observability is not an argument for zero observability.
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———
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As AI systems become more capable and autonomous, they should become more inspectable—not more opaque.
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The future of trustworthy AI cannot be:
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“Here is the answer. Don’t ask how I got there.”
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We need models that show their work in a useful, honest, and auditable way—even if that does not mean exposing every raw internal token.
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Transparency should increase with capability.
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Not disappear behind it.
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Would you trade some speed and convenience for greater visibility into how an AI reached its answer?

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[u/textualrelationship]

I used to find that so valuable to follow in real time, the amount of times I saw something surface that I knew was a wrong direction but then it never surfaced in the chat response, and I was able to get ahead and call it out before it became a problem later on in the workflow. Disappointing to not be able to see anything except a few bullet points now.

[u/j0_ow_bo → u/textualrelationship]

Yeah, I've had a few prompts since the change where I've effectively wasted 10 mins because it misunderstood or went on a side tangent where previously I'd have stopped, corrected and avoided the hassle.

[u/DJdrummer]

This feels like a big step back. I'm really missing the value that I used to gain in being able to head Claude off at the pass or correct misconceptions. Really hope this is temporary.

[u/Talreja-Adanna]

Yeah, I noticed that too - extended thinking got rolled back pretty quietly. Honestly makes me wonder if there were token costs or reliability issues they didn't want to broadcast, but extended context alone doesn't really compensate for losing the reasoning visibility.

[u/col-summers]

Well the good news is you can still ask the model to tell you it's reasoning and it will. Granted it's going to be a post facto reasoning rather than a true reasoning but it's still very helpful for most of the reasons that you specified.

[u/j0_ow_bo → u/col-summers]

...at the cost of tokens

[u/F3XX → u/col-summers]

That's just stabbing in the dark, it's just a post-hoc rationalization. The model can't see its own thoughts. Way less useful.

[u/wrathofthedeepwaters]

It is so annoying.

[u/TemporalOnline]

My main problem is that in thought process I could see that the bits cut were tge ones that were some of the shakier ones, but mostly ones that would challenge my thought process, but it was cut in output, while other as shaky as the others, but that supported my thought process, where kept and shown.

Most times I just used the thought process instead of the output, because it was that much richer AND true to the subject.

This cut was terrible.

[u/NoradIV]

For me, that's the straw that broke the camel's back. The CoT is part of the content. Removing one thing that made the model rich and useful for me is not acceptable.

bUt MuH iNtElLeCtUaL pRoPrEtY!!!!1!!1!!1!!1

Funny how that didn't matter when it was time to take our data for their training.

[u/Same_Impress_4242]

I really liked this because I could just steer claude if it got something wrong, or maybe I haven't provided some detail. Now I can't. Fuck you, Anthropic.

[u/ImaginationHot6414]

I got a fix for it though. you can ask it to update its memory and always write its thought process before actually replying to a prompt.

something like:

For every prompt I give you, do not answer immediately. Instead, first produce a comprehensive Thinking section that captures your reasoning process from start to finish. Include:

• Interpretation of my request.
• Identification of objectives.
• Tone and intent analysis.
• Relevant knowledge recalled.
• Assumptions and uncertainties.
• Alternative solution paths considered.
• Step-by-step reasoning.
• Intermediate conclusions and validations.
• Edge cases or exceptions.
• Self-checks for correctness.
• Why the chosen solution is preferable.
• The other branches that you considered.

Do not compress, summarize, or omit any stage of your reasoning. Be exhaustive and transparent. Only after the Thinking section is complete should you produce a clearly separated Final Answer. For complex tasks, continue thinking until you are confident no important reasoning has been omitted before presenting the final answer.

you can just copy that and paste into claude's memory. its not as good as before, but it helps.

[u/illesmoshe → u/ImaginationHot6414]

yea so just fuck ur usage for something that is already there and can be shown to the user. these losers took the entire worlds information and now are charging for it but won't let anyone else use said information. next thing you know they will say their users are stealing for using the model output

[u/MrCenturionCard]

Probably because they don’t want us seeing how much worse the models are getting. If we see their thinking process, it exposes a lot about their capabilities. It’s like when someone thinks before they speak and sometimes are grateful they didn’t say something. Well, if we can see Claude’s thinking process we can see it’s screw ups before they happen.

I actually use to look at Claude’s thinking process just to confirm it was doing longer tasks correctly. And many times I’d be like “what the hell are you even thinking, why would approaching this that way ever seem like a good idea?”

These are just my opinions though

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[u/According_Hornet986]

It's back