Faster coding, adaptive thinking, and visual understanding across a 1M-token context
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is Anthropic's Sonnet model for well-scoped software development and multi-step professional work. It helps teams build features, fix bugs, use tools, and prepare documents, with output Anthropic reports is more than 30% faster than Sonnet 5.
Its 1M-token context window connects large codebases and long documents, while adaptive thinking lets developers tune effort to the task. Vision support adds charts and screenshots to the same workflow, making it useful for agent systems that work across code, text, and interfaces.
A practical overview of the model's coding, reasoning, speed, and multimodal capabilities.
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Claude Sonnet 5.5 is built for well-scoped development tasks and multi-step professional work. Anthropic reports a 70.6% score on Terminal-Bench 4.0, compared with 10.3% for Sonnet 5 under its evaluation setup. It can inspect code, use tools, fix bugs, and produce polished documents while keeping routine agent workflows responsive.
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Adaptive thinking lets Sonnet 5.5 scale its reasoning to the task. Developers can choose an effort level to balance answer quality, latency, and token use instead of assigning a fixed thinking budget. Anthropic sets Medium as the default in Claude apps and High on the Claude Platform, so testing at the intended effort level matters for production workloads.
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Anthropic reports that Sonnet 5.5 generates output more than 30% faster than Sonnet 5. In head-to-head coding tests, it batches tool calls more effectively and works through tasks in fewer steps. In a separate 13-case code-review test, CodeRabbit measured an average full-review time of 5:27 with Sonnet 5.5 versus 9:55 with Sonnet 5; the chart shows that workflow result.
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Sonnet 5.5 interprets charts, screenshots, and other image inputs for visual analysis and computer-use tasks. In Anthropic's Chartography evaluation, it scores 61.6% without tools, compared with 15.6% for Sonnet 5. Its 1M-token context window also supports work across large codebases, long documents, and extended conversations.
Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 to inspect a codebase, implement scoped features, debug failures, and review changes across a multi-step development workflow.
Build agents that plan, call tools, check results, and continue through routine tasks while tuning effort for the required quality and response time.
Analyze long source material, combine findings, and draft clear reports or briefs with the context needed to preserve important details.
Interpret charts and reports, summarize evidence, and explain patterns across visual and written material in a single workflow.
Turn requirements and visual references into structured copy, presentation drafts, and interface feedback for quick review and revision.
Prepare spreadsheets, slide decks, and repeatable knowledge-work outputs while using tool calls to verify intermediate results.
Anthropic positions Sonnet 5.5 as a faster and more capable successor to Sonnet 5 for everyday professional and agentic tasks. The figures below come from Anthropic's published evaluations.
| Capability | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Output speed | More than 30% faster | Baseline |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | 70.6% | 10.3% |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens |
| CursorBench 4.0 | 55.5% | 34.1% |
| Chartography (no tools) | 61.6% | 15.6% |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | 1844 Elo | 1449 Elo |
Source: Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 5.5 launch announcement. Benchmark results depend on evaluation setup, effort, and workload.
Review coding, agents, adaptive thinking, vision, and 1M-token context in one focused overview so teams can judge where Sonnet 5.5 fits.
Use published speed, coding, visual, and knowledge-work results to assess what changed between the two Sonnet generations.
Place Sonnet 5.5 in PoYo's wider chat model catalog and compare the work each model handles best, from routine coding to longer agent tasks.
Map effort settings, context needs, visual inputs, and tool workflows before choosing how to incorporate Sonnet 5.5 into a product.
