Effort level cannot be inspected or reliably controlled, making Opus 4.6 risky to use

Summary

The effort level setting for Opus 4.6 cannot be inspected or reliably controlled during a session, which combined with the high default effort level and its 5x usage multiplier, makes Opus 4.6 risky for users to adopt.

Problems

1. Default effort level is "High" with no warning

Opus 4.6's default effort level is "High", which causes approximately 5x the token usage compared to lower effort levels. This is widely reported and problematic because:

• Users can burn through even the largest Max subscription limits unexpectedly
• There's no warning or indication when starting a session that high effort is active
• Users who expected similar usage patterns to previous models are caught off guard

2. No way to check or set effort level in-session

• The /model command shows "Effort not supported for Default (recommended)" even though the Default model is Opus 4.6, which supports effort levels
• There's no /effort command or similar to view/change the current effort level
• /status doesn't display the current effort level
• The only way to access the effort slider appears to be selecting a non-Default model explicitly

3. Environment variable cannot be validated

Because there's no way to inspect the current effort level in a running session:

• Users who set CLAUDE_CODE_EFFORT_LEVEL in their environment or settings.json cannot verify it took effect
• If the setting is ignored or overridden for any reason, users have no way to know
• This makes careful resource management impossible

Impact

Careful Claude Code users cannot currently trust Opus 4.6 because they cannot:

1. Know what effort level is active
2. Change it reliably during a session
3. Verify their configuration is being respected

Suggested improvements

1. Display current effort level in /status output
2. Add an /effort command to view and change effort level
3. Expose the effort slider for "Default (recommended)" when it's backed by a model that supports it
4. Consider a lower default effort level, or at minimum warn users about the usage implications
5. Show effort level in the session startup banner when using a model that supports it