# Anthropic urges new prompting habits for Claude Opus 5.5

> The company says dropping old phrases like “think hard” and using the Medium effort setting speeds up Claude Opus 5.5 without hurting quality.

Oossa · 2026-11-14 · https://oossa.com/en/anthropic-urges-new-prompting-habits-for-claude-opus-5-5

Anthropic says users of Claude Opus 5.5 should stop adding prompts such as “think hard” or “think carefully.” The model, now the default on Pro, Max, Ultra and Team plans, reasons adaptively and can start faster when those phrases are omitted. Anthropic also recommends keeping the effort level at “Medium,” which it says matches the performance of the previous Opus 5 on “High.” Higher settings cost more and don’t always improve results.

## The facts

- Claude Opus 5.5 is the default model on Anthropic’s Pro, Max, Ultra and Team plans.
- Anthropic advises using the Medium effort level and removing “think hard” prompts.

## Why it matters

Dropping outdated phrasing and using Medium effort lets subscribers get quicker answers from Claude Opus 5.5 without a drop in quality.

## Sources & references

1. [Anthropic says outdated prompting habits are slowing down Claude Opus 5.5](https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-says-outdated-prompting-habits-are-slowing-down-claude-opus-5-5/) – The Decoder, 2026-11-14

Last updated: 2026-11-14