Model selector labels 'Default' but ships Sonnet — misleading UX

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Apr 10, 2026 by simon-wattlelegal Closed Apr 13, 2026

Summary

The /model command presents one option labelled Default, but the actual default selected at session start is Sonnet, not the model Anthropic recommends as default.

Current behaviour

  • Opening a new Claude Code session auto-selects Sonnet 4.6
  • Running /model shows an option labelled "Default"
  • The label implies the currently-selected model is the recommended default — but it isn't

Expected behaviour

Either:

  1. The model labelled "Default" should actually be selected by default when opening a new session, OR
  2. The label should be renamed to remove the implication that it represents Anthropic's recommendation

Suggested improvement

Support a "model": "default" (or "model": "recommended") value in settings.json that resolves to whatever Anthropic currently recommends — so users can express "always use the recommended model" without pinning a specific version string that ages out.

Why it matters

Users who want to follow Anthropic's recommendation currently have no persistent way to do so without hardcoding a specific model ID. That forces a choice between manual session setup (run /model every time) or pinning a version that will eventually be outdated.

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