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How to Set Claude Code Effort Level to Max

·1 min

By default, Claude Code starts with medium reasoning effort. You can bump it up to max for deeper, more thorough responses.

You might try setting effortLevel in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "effortLevel": "max"
}

But this won’t work — settings.json only accepts low, medium, or high. The max level is only available through the CLI flag or an environment variable.

The Fix #

Add this to your ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc):

export CLAUDE_CODE_EFFORT_LEVEL=max

Then reload your shell:

source ~/.bashrc

The environment variable takes precedence over settings.json and supports all values: low, medium, high, and max.

Other Ways to Change Effort #

You can also change it per session without persisting:

  • CLI flag: claude --effort max
  • In-session command: /effort max

But the environment variable is the simplest way to make max the default across all sessions.