Support per-session model override without persisting to settings
Resolved 💬 6 comments Opened Apr 3, 2026 by webyneter Closed May 19, 2026
Problem
/model writes the selected model to settings.json, making it a global change across all sessions. If I switch to Sonnet in one terminal session for a quick task, every other running and future session also switches. There's no way to temporarily use a different model in a single session without affecting others.
Proposed solution
Add a session-only model override that doesn't persist to settings.json. Two complementary approaches:
- CLI flag:
claude --model sonnet— starts the session with a model override without writing to settings - Session-only
/model:/model --session(or make session-only the default for/model, with/model --saveto persist)
The override should take precedence over settings.json and project-level settings for the duration of that session only.
Current workaround
Manually switch back with /model after finishing, which is error-prone and still briefly affects other sessions.
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