Claude Sonnet 5 Setup Guide

Claude Sonnet 5 represents a significant shift, focusing on continuous work like inspecting files, operating tools, and running commands rather than just improved chat answers. This model can now handle many tasks previously requiring the more expensive Opus model, offering a more affordable solution for everyday operations. The key to Sonnet 5’s effectiveness lies in its adaptive thinking, multiple effort levels, large context window, and enhanced tool use, allowing it to be a persistent assistant when used properly.

• Sonnet 5 is designed for continuous tasks like file inspection, tool operation, and command execution.
• It can perform many tasks that previously required the more expensive Opus model.
• Sonnet 5 features adaptive thinking, five effort levels, a 1-million-token context window, and stronger tool use.
• It is now the default model for Claude Free and Pro users, and available via API.
• Pricing for Sonnet 5 is $2/1M input tokens and $10/1M output tokens until September 1, 2026, after which it increases to $3/$15.
• The recommended approach is to start with Sonnet, increase effort for difficult tasks, and only move to Opus when necessary.
• Improvements over Sonnet 4.6 are noted in coding and agentic tasks.
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