Ask HN: Is Opus 5.5 another step change?

This feels like another moment, like earlier this year, and the year prior. I am thrilled for my use cases in the applications that I build with CC, and for the LLM API usage that I sell. However, it honestly scares the crap out out of me.

Is "the exponential" an actual thing?

7 points | by consumer451 4 hours ago

8 comments

  • JojoFatsani 2 minutes ago
    I just love that it knows how to form its thoughts into meaningful statements without rambling again.
  • tkgally 1 hour ago
    I’m also finding Opus 5.5 to be a significant advance. In the past few days, I’ve given it several complex tasks related to two long-term dictionary-building projects [1, 2], and it handled them impressively—similar to Fable but with much lower token consumption. It also communicates better than Opus 5.1; I don’t think I’ve seen any obvious Claudisms yet.

    [1] https://www.tkgje.jp/

    [2] https://tkgally.github.io/eex-dict/index.html

  • nr378 2 hours ago
    Yep, I'm personally finding Opus 5.5 to be the first real leap I've felt since Opus 4.5. The time-to-first-token seems dramatically better in Claude Code compared to Fable 5.1/Opus 5 as well, which really helps both interactivity and also overall time-to-completion.

    It also burns Claude subscription quota much more slowly than Fable, which is nice.

  • A_D_E_P_T 4 hours ago
    Yes, Opus 5.5 and Astra-6 are big improvements over Opus 5 and Sol-5.6. I'm at a point where I can automate much of my workflow, even for complicated tasks, which I could never do before.

    Also the new Xiaomi model, Mimo v2.6, is outstanding as a light and cheap model. For coding, the new meta is using Astra-6-Max for orchestration and architecture, and Mimo for grunt work.

  • brianwawok 2 hours ago
    Feels like a faster and cheaper fable, which yes is a big jump.
  • smnplk 2 hours ago
    yea, apparently you dont need to know Rust
  • grim_io 3 hours ago
    It's less shit, so that's good I think.
  • m4rtink 3 hours ago
    No. Next question ?