Notify users when model effort level changes

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

I spent 3 days working with Claude in VS Code at medium effort without
knowing it had been changed from high. There was no notification.

I thought the quality drop was on my end — I was debugging my workflow,
questioning my methods, when the model was just running at reduced effort.

A simple popup or status bar message like:
"⚠️ Model effort level has changed to [medium]. Check your settings."

would save users a lot of frustration and wasted time.

Platform: VS Code extension, Windows 11

Proposed Solution

Show a one-time VS Code notification when the effort level setting
changes after an update. That's it.

Alternative Solutions

No workaround currently. The only way to notice is when output quality
drops and you start questioning yourself instead of checking settings.

Priority

Medium - Would be very helpful

Feature Category

Configuration and settings

Use Case Example

1. I use Claude Code daily in VS Code with effort set to "high"
2. After an update, the setting silently reverted to "medium"
3. For 3 days I thought I was the problem — I changed my workflow,

questioned my methods, wasted hours debugging my own process

1. A single notification would have saved me 3 days of frustration

Additional Context

_No response_