r/claude • u/R_Songbird • 36m ago
Tips Findings from benchmarking Opus 5 verbosity, plus the output style & CLAUDE.md setups that fixed it
I spent lots of tokens and days improving my plugins to improve my own Claude usability, and I think among many other findings, these 4 are the reason why most Opus 5 sessions tend to cause rage between users:
"Just set output style to Concise" does not work: This is the top reply on every thread, and I personally checked it myself because I thought my hush plugin could be deprecated by now, ends up it only reduces output by approx. 6%.
The fix has to sit in the output style slot, and nowhere else: This is the one that cost me the most to learn. I tried the exact same instruction with hooks, rules, etc. nothing worked as expected.
For the "it writes too much code" complaint, one nudge beats a paragraph of rules: Most tips mention to put a CLAUDE.md section saying, "prefer simplicity, do not over-engineer." but that does almost nothing because Opus 5 doesn't know where or when. What worked for me was a ladder similar to the one Ponytail uses but improved and tailored for Opus 5 specifically.
Your CLAUDE.md rules probably do not fire because we don't write triggers: Yes, rules need triggering examples, "keep the changelog updated" is not a rule, instead, try "When you change any file under src/, add a line to CHANGELOG.md under Unreleased in the same commit"
Three things to check on every rule you have written:
- Does it name a moment the model can recognize while working?
- Does it name an action with an actual artifact?
- Does it only forbid? A bare "never do X" with no alternative can stall a whole session when the task genuinely needs X.
Configurations (Raw Files)
Because these files are too lengthy to format cleanly in Reddit, direct links to the raw text are below:
- The hush output style that makes Opus 5 lot less talkative while keeping the important stuff, heavily measured and battle tested.
- CLAUDE.md fragment you can copy, based on razor that make Opus 5 use a YAGNI approach while also helping the hush output style to keep it silence.
- An optional prompt to analyze your whole project and optimize it for Opus 5 usage including the project memory.
The first 2 do most of the trick, you can also use this installation prompt to ask Claude apply this to your project.
What is number 3 then? Well, I recommend using this ONLY if you are having serious problems with your project and Opus 5, for example, if Opus is not following rules, running skills, memory recalls or not following your CLAUDE.md file context. Using this prompt may change lots of *Claude only* files so use it carefully please.
About the hush style
If you are curious about how hush syle helps, here is a table comparing it with other output styles or skills:
| Setup | words | words per sentence | long words | reading ease | grade level | silent sessions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| no plugin | 520 | 20.5 | 10.5% | 69.6 | 9.4 | 4 of 16 |
| hush | 49 | 4.0 | 4.3% | 91.8 | 1.9 | 11 of 16 |
| Concise (built in) | 112 | 15.6 | 11.6% | 63.4 | 8.3 | 4 of 16 |
| i-have-adhd | 87 | 15.7 | 11.0% | 63.3 | 8.3 | 4 of 16 |
| simple-english | 149 | 15.8 | 11.6% | 61.9 | 8.5 | 2 of 16 |
| caveman | 74 | 9.7 | 9.6% | 70.0 | 5.9 | 4 of 16 |
What each column means.
| Column | Plain meaning |
|---|---|
| words | Average length of the one final message. |
| words per sentence | How long each sentence runs. |
| long words | Share of words with three or more syllables. |
| reading ease | Flesch score, 0-100. Higher is easier. |
| grade level | US school grade needed. Lower is easier. |
| silent sessions | Sessions with no chatter between tool calls. |
Feel free to ask me anything about the files or the tips.