[BUG] Claude Desktop keeps defaulting to 200K

Status Open
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Jul 20, 2026

Preflight Checklist

  • [ ] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
  • [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
  • [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

It looks like you're forcing me to lie by making those checkboxes mandatory. This is basically the same as the closed bug here https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/36515. It's a problem because for a while it was 1m by default so I never developed the habit of switching. Now I just start using the tool (I have Opus 4.6 as my default), and then very shortly thereafter the model gets extremely stupid and starts making mistakes. This wastes time and tokens because it's really not very usable once it starts getting to 60%.

What Should Happen?

Users should be able to set the model they want to use by default and not have to reselect it every. single. time.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open Claude desktop
  2. Set your model to /model claude-opus-4-6[1m]
  3. Do some work
  4. Start a new chat

New chat should start as Opus 4.6 1 million token version

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

IDK

Claude Code Version

1.22209.3

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

PowerShell

Additional Information

I have spent a LOT of time trying to get Claude to fix this, editing JSON files, etc. It stubbornly resists fixes.

View original on GitHub ↗