Set effort levels in Claude Code

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While we can use models of varying intelligence to control the level of quality of the response, we can also define the level of effort it takes to process a response.

There are a few ways to set the effort levels in Claude Code, and it's worth knowing how long each setting persists.

The effort picker

You can open the effort picker by typing /effort and tapping enter. This will give you a slider of the different effort levels that you can choose. You can then tap the left and right arrows to pick an effort level and tap enter to confirm it. If you tap s instead of enter, that level applies to the current session only, just like it does when switching models.

Using the /effort flag sets the related value for the rest of the current session, as well as all future sessions. Claude Code saves it per model, so each model keeps its own level. But max is the exception; it always applies to the current session only, so you can't leave it on by accident.

Set via CLI

Another way to set the effort level is when starting Claude Code. After the claude command, you can pass in --effort as a flag, and then define a level:

claude --effort high

Unlike /effort, the flag only applies to that one session. So use this when you want a specific effort level for a single run, and nothing more.

Set via configuration

You can also set the effort level from low to xhigh in Claude Code's settings configuration files, using the effortLevel key, though the max setting isn't an option in the settings configuration.

If you want max to persist, setting the CLAUDE_CODE_EFFORT_LEVEL environment variable is the only way to do it. But be careful with this setting, because it overrides ALL other effort levels, including those defined in settings configuration and subagent definitions.

Resetting effort levels

To reset an effort level, just type /effort auto.