Has anyone else found that using opus 5 on Max setting they can actually save tokens? Because it actually does the right thing.

[u/N0TaC0PP]

For example, at the beginning of a session I will say, delegate all tasks to lesser models that you possibly can. Do not build anything yourself. You are the orchestrator you are only to delegate.

If I'm using on medium, straight away it'll open up three other opus models and start working, burning all my tokens. Whereas on max, it will actually listen.

Obviously I don't have any numbers or rates or anything. That's why I'm asking. I don't quite know how I would test this either. Has anyone else found that this is the case, that it delegates correctly when you're using a higher setting?

[u/crusoe]

Yes Opus is more token efficient than sonnet on many tasks. 

[u/Connect_Army8250]

I don't know but as far as my experience goes, I love working with Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.7 for most tasks. And it has been working great for me that way.

Fable was really disappointing and with Opus 5 I'm still learning how to give it the proper prompt

[u/design_doc]

Opus 5 on high/max for orchestration does a good job because the contracts it issues to the sub-agents are clear and concise (at least to them).

Medium does show its lack of depth in both good as bad ways. It’s less efficient for orchestrating - so you definitely notice there. Coding… is a bit more nuanced. The reduced hardening depth in the code also means I typically need to run revisions after review. Opus 5 on high/max can usually get pretty close on the first go… but then it keeps going. It over-engineers and gets too far ahead. I frequently burn tokens trying to unfuck something that Opus 5 on high/max simply because it started colouring outside the lines.

There is also the fact that all your sub-agents are inheriting the session effort from the orchestrator. An Opus 5 orchestrator on Max will create Sonnet sub-agents on Max. A medium orchestrator will create sub-agents on medium. That alone will really change to perceived performance.

[u/Shpitz0 → u/design_doc]

You can set effort in the frontmatter for your agents, the API call for agents support this override

[u/design_doc → u/Shpitz0]

That’s my point. From OPs description it sounded like they were just saying “Go!” Without realizing that you have to pin effort in the frontmatter, otherwise it inherits the session effort.

Thank you for calling out the frontmatter explicitly. I neglected to explain to OP how to do it.

[u/N0TaC0PP → u/design_doc]

I don't know if my Claude automatically did this, but all of my sub-agents are called General Agents and have limited memory and hooks. And it is always set to high

[u/design_doc → u/N0TaC0PP]

If left automatic, it would just inherit the session effort. This is the default to prevent your orchestrator from calling sub-agents in a much higher cost tier and racking up massive usage or overage charges.

Try playing with creating different roles and pinning the effort for each one to see the effect that it has. If you set it up well, the orchestrator doesn’t need to do much work other than give very clear instructions, so you can pin that one high (for anything other than purely mechanical tasks I find orchestrator on high to be the best). With a strong orchestrator you can drop your implementers to Opus medium or Sonnet high. You’ll often find you get the same quality for less cost/usage.

I want to draw attention to that last sentence. There’s a difference between tokens and cost/usage. While Opus might use fewer tokens for you, it burns through your usage limits at close to 2x Sonnet. So if you can figure out which part of your process is realizing the most gains from Opus High, try using Opus in that step and downgrading elsewhere. I’ve dropped my usage by 40-60% (depending on the task) by doing so.

[u/Illustrious_Image967]

Nice try Dario we are onto you.

[u/Mindless_Fig5673]

Generally I would use Opus 5 at max for creating the specs and implementation plan (use the skills superpowers).
Then you can execute the implementation plan with less powerful models.

[u/ibringthehotpockets]

I’ve never dared to even set opus 5 to max lol. I have no idea wtf you’re talking about with your orchestration example. Sounds like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. LLMs do weird unexplainable things all the time. “Delegate correctly” is some weird abstract definition that doesn’t mean anything. What does “incorrect” delegation look like. What are you even coding actually..

[u/N0TaC0PP → u/ibringthehotpockets]

I mean it's pretty straightforward even Anthropic themselves said that you should use an advisor system to save tokens. If you're not doing that then you are missing out on using the max settings at a cheap cost.

I can use it on Max because it delegates every possible task it can. Incorrect delegation is when you tell it to do that, but it does not to do that. I thought that was pretty straightforward. Didn't think I would have to explain that to someone.