Claude Developer Platform Updates & Release Notes

• We've launched Claude Sonnet 5.5 (claude-sonnet-5-5). It's available on the Claude API, Claude in Amazon Bedrock, Claude Platform on AWS, Claude on Google Cloud, and Claude in Microsoft Foundry. For its context window, output limits, and prices, see the Claude Sonnet 5.5 model page.

• Code written for Claude Sonnet 5 can break on Claude Sonnet 5.5 in five ways. To turn off up-front thinking, send thinking: {"type": "between_tools"} instead of "disabled", at high effort or below. Forced tool use (tool_choice types any and tool) returns a 400 error. The response's `usage.spe...

• Thinking blocks that Claude Sonnet 5.5 produces work only in the account that produced them, or in an account linked to it. When another account sends one of these blocks, the API drops the block before the model sees it, and the request succeeds. Blocks from earlier models aren't affected. See Preserved thinking.

• We're resuming billing for refusals that arrive before any output when stop_details.category is "bio", "frontier_llm", or "reasoning_extraction", the categories where we measure low volumes of false positives. Mid-stream refusals were already billed. Refusals billed under this change are charged like any other request, at the rates of the model that ran it. Refusals before any output in other categories are still not billed, and fallback credit is unchanged. This change applies on all platforms. See How refusals are billed.

• The Compliance API local session endpoints are out of beta for Claude for Microsoft 365 sessions in Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook (product_surface values beginning with office_agents). See Sessions on users' machines.

• The Compliance API Activity Feed no longer returns file names, project document names, or artifact titles. The filename and title fields on file, project document, and artifact activities are now always empty or omitted, including on activities recorded before this change. To look up a name or title by the ID on the activity, use a Compliance Access Key with the read:compliance_user_data scope. See Understand the Activity object.

Claude Opus 5.5

• We've launched Claude Opus 5.5 (claude-opus-5-5), a model for long-running agentic coding and knowledge work. It has a 1M token context window by default, 128k max output tokens, and always-on adaptive thinking, at $4 / $20 USD per MTok (Claude Opus 5 is $5 / $25). Claude Opus 5.5 is available on the Claude API, Claude in Amazon Bedrock, Claude Platform on AWS, Claude on Google Cloud, and Claude in Microsoft Foundry. See What's new in Claude Opus 5.5 for capabilities, API changes, and migration guidance.

• On Claude Opus 5.5, thinking can't be disabled: thinking: {"type": "disabled"} and thinking: {"type": "enabled", ...} return a 400 error. Omit the thinking field and control thinking depth with the effort parameter. tool_choice types any and tool also return a 400 error, as on Claude Fable 5.1; use auto with strict tool use. On the Claude API and Google Cloud, computer use on this model requires the computer_toolset_20260801 toolset and the earlier computer_20251124 tool returns a 400 error; on Amazon Bedrock, computer_20251124 keeps working. See the migration guide.

• Fast mode (research preview) is available for Claude Opus 5.5 on the Claude API.

• Tools can now be defined inside a mid-conversation system message, in beta on the Claude API with the inline-tools-2026-09-15 beta header. A tool_addition block can carry the tool's full definition (tool: {"type": "tool_definition", "definition": {...}}), so you can add a tool, change its schema, or move a server tool to a newer version without editing tools or invalidating the prompt cache. The same header covers adding and removing tools by reference. With the MCP connector's mcp-client-2026-09-15 beta header as well, the definition can be an MCP toolset, and a response records each server's fetched tool list in an mcp_tool_listing block, which pins that list when you send it back.

• For cache diagnostics, a response to a request that sends the cache-diagnosis-2026-04-07 beta header now always includes the diagnostics field. The field is null when the request did not include the diagnostics object. Previously the field was omitted in that case.
• The Compliance API local session endpoints now also return transcripts of Claude in Chrome sessions (product_surface value claude_in_chrome), in beta for Claude Enterprise organizations, with your existing Compliance Access Key and the read:compliance_user_data scope. See Sessions on users' machines.

• The Messages API can now compact a conversation on demand on the Claude API, in beta with the compact-2026-09-04 beta header. Send the top-level compaction parameter, and the API returns a signed compaction block that summarizes the messages you sent. On later requests, send that block first, in place of those messages. You choose when to compact, the request can run in the background, and you can keep recent turns word for word after the summary. On models with preserved thinking, the thinking in those kept turns can stay valid.

• With the thinking-binding-controls-2026-08-01 beta header, the input_transformations response field gains a second entry type, thinking_mismatch_allowed. It names a thinking block that failed the prefix check on a request where the API doesn't enforce that check: on Claude Fable 5.1, for example, a request from an account created before August 31, 2026, with prefix_mismatch_behavior unset. The block still reaches the model unchanged. Log these entries to find history edits in production traffic before you opt into enforcement. See Set the mismatch behavior and read input_transformations.

• Claude Managed Agents permission policies now include auto: the server evaluates each agent or MCP tool call and runs it, denies it, or pauses for your approval. agent.tool_use and agent.mcp_tool_use events report how each call was evaluated in an evaluation field alongside evaluated_permission. See Let the server evaluate each call with auto.

• Version 1.32.0 of the ant CLI adds ant beta:sessions connect, which attaches your terminal to a Claude Managed Agents session. You can follow the session live, send messages, and allow or deny tool calls that are waiting for approval. Pass --web to serve the Claude Console's session viewer locally and open the session there instead. See Connect to a Managed Agents session from your terminal.

• Version 1.30.0 of the ant CLI adds ant apply, which creates and updates agents, environments, skills, memory stores, and deployments from files in your repository. Describe each resource in a file, run ant apply, and approve the plan it prints. Commit the claude-lock.json lockfile it writes so that later runs, on your machine or in CI, update the same resources instead of creating new ones. See Manage resources as code with ant apply.
• Per-message effort changes, in beta, are also available on Google Cloud for Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Mythos 5.1, and Claude Opus 5, with the same mid-conversation-output-config-2026-07-01 beta header.

• We've launched Claude Fable 5.1 (claude-fable-5-1), the successor to Claude Fable 5 for long-running agentic coding, knowledge work, and research, alongside Claude Mythos 5.1 (claude-mythos-5-1) for Project Glasswing participants. Both models support a 1M token context window by default, 128k max output tokens, and always-on adaptive thinking, at $10 / $50 USD per MTok, the same as Claude Fable 5, with cache reads cut to $0.25 per MTok. Claude Fable 5.1 is available on the Claude API, Claude in Amazon Bedrock, Claude Platform on AWS, Claude on Google Cloud, and Claude in Microsoft Foundry. See What's new in Claude Fable 5.1 for capabilities, API changes, and migration guidance.

• Prompt cache reads on Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1 cost $0.25 USD per million tokens: 0.025x the base input price, compared with 0.1x on other models. Cache writes are unchanged. See Prompt caching pricing.

• On Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1, tool_choice types any and tool aren't supported and return a 400 error. auto and none are unchanged. To guarantee schema-conformant tool inputs, use strict tool use or structured outputs.

• Thinking blocks produced by Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1 are preserved only for the model that produced them or a newer one: earlier models can't read them, and the API drops one replayed to an earlier model. Claude Fable 5.1 accepts thinking blocks from Claude Opus 5, Claude Fable 5, Claude Mythos 5, and earlier Claude models. On Claude Fable 5.1, the API also checks that nothing before a block has changed: for new accounts created on or after August 31, 2026, replaying one after the system prompt, tools, or an earlier message changed returns a 400 error. With the thinking-binding-controls-2026-08-01 beta header, dropped blocks are reported in an input_transformations response field, and thinking.block_binding.prefix_mismatch_behavior chooses between rejecting and dropping blocks whose history changed. See Preserved thinking.

• Per-message effort changes are in beta on Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Mythos 5.1, and Claude Opus 5 on the Claude API. Add a role: "system" message with output_config.effort inside messages to change effort for later turns while preserving the prompt cache. Include the mid-conversation-output-config-2026-07-01 beta header in your requests. See Per-message effort.

• Turn-scoped system messages are in beta (mid-conversation-system-clear-at-2026-08-21 header). Set clear_at: "next_user_message" on a mid-conversation role: "system" message and it renders for the current turn only, then stays in the history at no token cost. Per-turn reminders don't accumulate and don't invalidate the prompt cache or later thinking blocks.

• thinking.display accepts a third value, "updates", in beta (thinking-display-updates-2026-08-18 header). Reasoning comes back with an empty thinking field, as under "omitted", and the short progress updates that Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Mythos 5.1, and Claude Fable 5 write between tool calls come back as text, at most one thinking block before a tool call. See Progress updates between tool calls.

• Text generated by Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1 carries Anthropic's text watermark, and supported image and video files that Claude produces through the code execution tool carry C2PA Content Credentials when you retrieve them through the Files API on the Claude API. Marking requires no changes to your requests or response handling.

• Like Claude Fable 5, both models require 30-day data retention and aren't available under zero data retention unless expressly authorized by Anthropic. See Model-specific data retention requirements.

• The guides for the Claude Enterprise endpoints of the Admin API (user management and spend limits), the Claude Enterprise Analytics API, and the Compliance API now show the anthropic-version header; send it on every request to these endpoints, as in the rest of the Claude API. See API versions.

In Python SDK 1.2.0, TypeScript SDK 0.122.0, Go SDK 1.68.0, Java SDK 2.59.0, Ruby SDK 1.67.0, and C# SDK 12.44.0, client.beta.files and client.beta.skills no longer send the files-api-2025-04-14 and skills-2025-10-02 beta headers and return the same shapes as client.files and client.skills. With this change, client.beta.skills.delete() deletes a Skill together with all of its versions, and the beta Messages type BetaSkill (the container Skill reference) is renamed BetaContainerSkill. Requests that still send the beta headers keep receiving the beta shapes. See Migrate from files-api-2025-04-14 and Migrate from skills-2025-10-02.

• You can now create personal keys and service account keys in the Claude Console. They act as you or as a service account, with the same permissions, and stop working when the linked account is removed from an organization. This lets organization admins more easily track usage for each account, and ensure key usage is legitimate. These API keys can be scoped to a specific workspace or work on admin endpoints and across any workspace the account has access to. Workspace API keys remain supported as a legacy option. See API keys for more information.

• The Compliance API session endpoints are out of beta for Cowork and Claude Code sessions. See Retrieve session transcripts.

• The Compliance API local session endpoints now also return transcripts of Claude Science sessions (product_surface value claude_science) and Claude for Microsoft 365 sessions in Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook (product_surface values beginning with office_agents), in beta for Claude Enterprise organizations, with your existing Compliance Access Key and the read:compliance_user_data scope. See Sessions on users' machines.

• The Admin API is now available in the ant CLI and the Python, TypeScript, C#, Go, Java, PHP, and Ruby SDKs under client.beta.organization. They cover organization info, members, invites, workspaces and workspace members, API keys, rate limits, service accounts, workload identity federation issuers and rules, and customer-managed encryption keys. Usage and cost reports and the Claude Enterprise user-management and analytics endpoints remain curl-only. The CLI and SDKs read an Admin API key from ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or an org:admin OAuth token from ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN.

• We've released v1.0 of the Python SDK. The SDK's HTTP layer moves from httpx to httpx2, a maintained, API-compatible fork: build custom http_client, Timeout, and transport objects from httpx2 (the DefaultHttpxClient helpers are unchanged), and call httpx2.alias_httpx() at startup if you rely on tracing or mocking libraries that patch httpx. v1.0 requires Python 3.10 or later and removes long-deprecated surface, including the legacy Text Completions API, the temperature, top_p, and top_k parameters on Messages methods, and the tool runner's client-side compaction_control. On the async client, .with_raw_response results now need await response.parse(), and AnthropicBedrock now raises an error when no AWS region is configured instead of defaulting to us-east-1. See the v1 migration guide for every change with before-and-after snippets.

• The computer use and browser use toolsets (computer_toolset_20260801 and browser_toolset_20260801) are now available on Google Cloud for Claude Fable 5, Claude Mythos 5, Claude Opus 5, Claude Sonnet 5, and Claude Opus 4.8. Requests use the same tools entries as on the Claude API.

• The computer use tool is out of beta on the Claude API as the computer_toolset_20260801 toolset: no beta header, batch actions (several actions in one turn), zoom enabled by default, and per-member configuration through configs. Earlier beta versions remain available. Upgrading an existing integration changes the request shape and tool handling; see Migrate from computer_20251124.
• We've launched the browser use tool (browser_toolset_20260801), a client toolset for driving a browser that your application hosts. It works inside a browser viewport rather than a whole desktop, reading the page itself (its accessibility tree, elements, forms, and tabs) and adding element references, form input, tab management, download reporting, and opt-in file upload on top of screenshot-and-click control.
• Both toolsets are available for Claude Fable 5, Claude Mythos 5, Claude Opus 5, Claude Sonnet 5, and Claude Opus 4.8 on the Claude API.
• The Files API is out of beta on the Claude API. Requests to the /v1/files endpoints, and Messages API requests that reference an uploaded file, no longer require the files-api-2025-04-14 beta header. Requests sent without the header use the current response format: file expiration (set expires_in_seconds when you upload a file; file objects report expires_at), and page and next_page pagination plus an ids[] filter when you list files. /v1/files requests that still send the beta header keep working and return the previous response format. To move an existing integration off the header, see Migrate from files-api-2025-04-14.
• Agent Skills and the Skills API (/v1/skills) are out of beta on the Claude API. Requests no longer require the skills-2025-10-02 beta header, including Messages API requests that load Skills through the container parameter. Requests that still send the header continue to work unchanged. See Using Agent Skills with the API. To move an existing integration off the header, see Migrate from skills-2025-10-02.
• The Admin API user-management endpoints for Claude Enterprise (claude.ai) organizations (members, invites, groups, and custom roles) are out of beta. The anthropic-beta: ce-user-management-2026-07-13 header is no longer required on group and custom-role requests; requests that still send it are accepted unchanged. See User management.
• You can now restrict which sites a Claude Managed Agents agent's web_search and web_fetch tools can reach. Set allowed_domains or blocked_domains on the tool's entry in the agent_toolset_20260401 configs array; web_fetch also accepts max_content_tokens and web_search accepts user_location. Each configs entry is identified by its name and typed by an optional type, and requests that pass only name, enabled, and permission_policy continue to work; in the typed SDKs, configs entries become per-tool types. See Restrict web search and web fetch domains.
• Claude Managed Agents sessions that run in a self-hosted sandbox can now attach memory stores. The Python, TypeScript, and Go SDK workers download each attached store into the sandbox at its mount_path and sync the agent's changes back to the store. See Use memory stores.
• The session viewer in the Claude Console has been redesigned with a timeline minimap, a transcript grouped by model request, and an Inspector panel for session details and cost, raw events, per-tool statistics, mounted resources, and per-thread activity. See Console observability.

• Workbench is now playground in the Claude Console. Playground supports every Messages API parameter and includes templates that demonstrate API features such as code execution and web search. It shows the full SDK request and the API response for each run, to help you understand the API and build with it. For more, see the Claude Help Center or try it at platform.claude.com/playground.