Claude Code

How hard it thinks is a dial, not a model.

Any of the four can be told to reason for longer before it answers, and the dial has five levels, from low to max.

You should know they are there, and that is about all.

Higher uses more tokens, and is more likely to give you a better answer.

So it is a feel rather than a rule, the same check you would do in your own head, how hard would I want to think about this one?

I leave mine on max the whole time, and /effort moves it on whichever model you are on.