CLAUDE CODE 2.1.197 MAKES SONNET 5 THE DEFAULT WITH A NATIVE 1M-TOKEN CONTEXT AND PROMO PRICING
Claude Code now defaults to Sonnet 5, bringing a native 1M-token context window and lower temporary pricing. The latest release of the CLI sets Sonnet 5 as the...
Claude Code now defaults to Sonnet 5, bringing a native 1M-token context window and lower temporary pricing.
The latest release of the CLI sets Sonnet 5 as the default model and advertises a native 1M-token context plus introductory $2/$10 per million tokens through August 31 (release notes, X changelog).
Anthropic says Sonnet 5 is a drop-in upgrade from 4.6 with behavior changes: adaptive thinking on by default, manual extended thinking removed (400), and non‑default sampling params now error (400) InfoWorld. For teams standardizing on the CLI, GA-level packaging and native installers replace the prior npm-first posture Augment Code overview.
If you maintain internal prompts or agents, review Sonnet 5 migration guidance—new tokenizer, updated tool use, and stricter instruction following—before flipping org defaults system prompts diff.
A native 1M-token context lets the agent reason over large repos and datasets without heavy chunking.
Model behavior changed; legacy prompts and non-default sampling settings can 400 your API calls.
-
terminal
Run the CLI against a large monorepo and measure token usage, latency, and accuracy versus Sonnet 4.6.
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terminal
Remove custom sampling and extended-thinking flags in API calls; verify responses and costs with the new tokenizer.
Legacy codebase integration strategies...
- 01.
Pin model versions or set an org default (v2.1.196) before rollout to avoid surprise behavior changes in automation pipelines.
- 02.
Deprecate npm installs in favor of native installers to reduce PATH drift and version skew on shared build agents.
Fresh architecture paradigms...
- 01.
Design agent workflows around the 1M context and adaptive thinking defaults to reduce bespoke retrieval and chunking.
- 02.
Standardize on Sonnet 5 for coding and tool use to get near‑Opus performance at lower cost.
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