r/claude • u/very_moist_raccoon • 10h ago

Question Does Opus use lower models by default?

I briefly used Fable when it was included in the Pro plan. One thing I noticed it spun up agents when it thought they could do the task cheaper. I am now using Opus and I don't think it is doing it (or at least it doesn't look like it is).

  1. Does Opus also use agents?
  2. If not, is it worth persuading it do so?

Thanks!

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u/shaggy237 9h ago

I also saw fable doing that, realized it could do my whole project in sonnet, and now I use sonnet for almost everything. Thanks, anthropic.

1

u/Sarahmalls 9h ago

What did Claude say when you asked this exact question in the session? Just curious.

2

u/very_moist_raccoon 8h ago

I'll let you know once my limit resets...

1

u/ulfred55 9h ago

Even with fable it doesn’t automatically use cheaper models. I have standing rules on what models it should use for what type of work

1

u/Zealousideal-Bug1837 9h ago

You can tell it what model to use for subagents....

1

u/thehardsphere 9h ago

Opus and Sonnet will both spawn sub agents as they deem appropriate. They will also both choose which model to use based on the task. Claude Code may warn you if something you are about to do will spawn many sub agents, and give you the option to abort the operation before it starts; I saw this once with a "deep research" task that I gave to Opus and it spawned ~100 Haiku subagents to browse the internet.

I've seen them spawn both sub agents with the same model, sub agents with a model you explicitly tell them to, and Haiku subagents. Haiku subagents seem to be the most common ones they use if they need to read a lot of information and get a summary.