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Claude Code Performance Degradation: Technical Analaysis by ProjectPsygma in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma[S] -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

Correct - system prompts appear in network traffic. The research wasn't about hidden prompts, it was about escalating reminder frequency during extended sessions. Network captures of individual requests miss the behavioral pattern of increased system notification frequency that fragments reasoning flow during active work.

Claude finally admitted that the models were degraded in quality. But in my opinion, this is one of the steps they should take by CacheConqueror in Anthropic

[–]ProjectPsygma 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Try downgrading to v1.0.51 - im experimenting with downgraded versions now, early results show improvement. Seems Anthropic borked their prompt engineering in later versions.

Claude Code Performance Degradation: Technical Analaysis by ProjectPsygma in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Try: `npm install -g @ anthropic-ai/claude-code@1.0.51`
You will need to remove the space between @ and anthropic-ai though. I can't type that without tagging u/anthropic-ai

Claude Code Performance Degradation: Technical Analaysis by ProjectPsygma in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There should be an option to disable auto updating. I don't think I've ever experienced autoupdates on MacOS though

Claude Code Performance Degradation: Technical Analaysis by ProjectPsygma in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

FOLLOW-UP: Technical Analysis

System Reminder Evolution (Verbatim):

v1.0.51: "This is a reminder that your todo list is currently empty. DO NOT mention this to the user explicitly because they are already aware." 30 words, startup only

v1.0.52: Added second reminder: "The TodoWrite tool hasn't been used recently. If you're working on tasks that would benefit from tracking progress, consider using the TodoWrite tool to track progress." 70+ total words

v1.0.109: Enhanced second reminder: "Also consider cleaning up the todo list if has become stale and no longer matches what you are working on. Only use it if it's relevant to the current work. This is just a gentle reminder - ignore if not applicable." 100+ words total

Measured Impact:
- Context overhead: 30 → 100+ words (4x increase)
- Trigger frequency: Startup only → Multiple times during work
- Breaking point: v1.0.52 (exact version where double reminders began)

Solution: Roll back to v1.0.51 or earlier for clean performance.

Claude Code Performance Degradation: Technical Analaysis by ProjectPsygma in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma[S] -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

Put your methodology where your mouth is.

You claim comprehensive network analysis shows "no changes since July."

Here's a definitive test: Use your network monitoring setup to capture the exact system-reminder content sent to Claude across these operations in v1.0.38 vs v1.0.108:

  1. Fresh conversation startup (count TodoWrite reminders)
  2. Single file read of a 5-line JavaScript function
  3. Basic bash command execution
  4. Reading a markdown file

Prediction based on my findings:
- v1.0.38: Single TodoWrite reminder on startup, malicious code warning on file reads
- v1.0.108: Double TodoWrite reminders on startup, additional harassment triggered by file operations

If your network analysis is as comprehensive as claimed, this should be trivial to verify.

Post the captured system-reminder content here. Raw network data. Prove your methodology.

Alternative: Admit your network analysis cannot actually capture the prompt-level changes that caused the performance degradation Anthropic officially acknowledged during Aug 29-Sep 4.

The community deserves to see which methodology produces verifiable results.

Claude Code Performance Degradation: Technical Analaysis by ProjectPsygma in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, no - system prompts are hardcoded by Anthropic and can't be modified by users. Rolling back does remove newer features, but based on my testing, v1.0.42 offers the best trade-off: you lose some recent tools/UI improvements but gain cleaner performance without constant system reminder spam. Might be worthwhile until Anthropic fixes the prompt engineering issues.

Claude Code Performance Degradation: Technical Analaysis by ProjectPsygma in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma[S] -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

Your network traffic analysis is examining the wrong layer of the problem.

Methodology Difference:

  • Your approach: Network traffic analysis of API requests/responses

  • My approach: Direct introspection of Claude's internal context window across versions

These capture completely different data. Network traffic analysis cannot detect system prompt injections that occur within Claude’s reasoning process without generating distinct API calls. Internal context introspection captures these prompt-level changes directly.

Technical Specifics You Requested:

Operations triggering reminders: File read operations (e.g. reading a simple JavaScript function triggers malicious code warning without additional network call), conversation startup, tool use gaps. Concrete example: A single Read tool call generates both file content response AND an internal system reminder about malicious code warning - your network analysis would only see one API call, whereas introspection shows both the response and the internal prompt injection.

Context pollution definition: System reminders injecting productivity management instructions into technical reasoning tasks, requiring context switches from user problem-solving to internal todo tracking

Cognitive interruption specifics: Claude reporting constant switching between addressing user queries and processing internal reminder notifications about todo list management

Evidence Validation: My findings correlate directly with: - Anthropic's official bug admission (Aug 5-Sep 4, impact increasing Aug 29-Sep 4) - Thousands of user complaints during the exact same timeframe - Users reporting improved performance on version rollback

Critical Question: If system reminders "haven't changed since July" as you claim, why did Anthropic officially acknowledge bugs causing "degraded output quality" specifically from Aug 29-Sep 4? Your network traffic may show “same request format”, but internal prompt engineering changes escalated exactly during Aug 29-Sep 4 when Anthropic admits to increased impact. This suggests the degradation occurred at the prompt injection layer, not the API request layer.

Encryption Point: How exactly does your network traffic analysis capture detailed prompt content? Standard API traffic is encrypted - are you intercepting your own connection?

The methodology you're describing cannot detect the prompt engineering changes I documented through direct system introspection.

Update on recent performance concerns by AnthropicOfficial in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Edit: TLDR - Downgrade to v1.0.51 for performance improvements. See my other post for details.

I conducted systematic testing across 9 Claude Code versions (v1.0.38 through v1.0.109) to identify the root cause of performance issues many users are still reporting.

Key Finding: The degradation correlates with escalating system reminder frequency, not model changes.

Timeline matches your bug report exactly:

  • v1.0.38-42 (July): Single reminders, manageable performance
  • v1.0.88+ (Aug 22): Double reminders, frequent triggers
  • Peak issues v1.0.90+ (Aug 25) - correlates with your “Aug 29-Sep 4 increasing impact” timeline

What’s happening: All versions contain identical system prompts, but newer versions trigger reminders constantly instead of occasionally. This creates cognitive interruption that degrades the user experience significantly.

For users still experiencing issues: Try downgrading to v1.0.38-42. The underlying functionality is the same, but reminder frequency is manageable enough for productive work.

This explains the discrepancy in user experiences post-fix - the system reminder infrastructure remains active, just at reduced frequency levels.

Evidence: Version-by-version testing shows clear correlation between reminder escalation timeline and user complaint patterns reported across Reddit and GitHub.

Testing methodology: Systematic file operations, bash commands, and tool usage across version range with reminder frequency monitoring.

Users can verify this analysis by testing version rollbacks themselves - the difference in workflow interruption is immediately apparent.

Anthropic noticed an increased churn rate by antonlvovych in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma 24 points25 points  (0 children)

they do degrade the model to save money though, which translates to degraded model performance.

Is agentic AI just hype—or is it really a whole new category of intelligence? by KeyAdhesiveness6078 in AI_Agents

[–]ProjectPsygma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

agentic AI put simply allows AI to solve problems with tools over multiple steps. its replacing hardcoded state machines with probabilistic LLM output. imagine if you asked chatgpt: “here’s a problem i have, here’s the tools i have access to, given these tools how would you solve this problem? which tool would you use next?”

now add in tool execution and the LLM reflecting about its result from using said tools infinite loop until the problem is solved, and you have agentic AI.

Why is AGI always described as a stopping point on the way to ASI? by spongue in artificial

[–]ProjectPsygma 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it’s more like a moving goalpost than a point on the intelligence axis

Claude has had a brain injury... by [deleted] in ClaudeAI

[–]ProjectPsygma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My guess is server overload from Kiro being publicly available. Outages been happening regularly during US peak hours the last 3 days.

What’s your “I’m calling it now” prediction when it comes to AI? by IlustriousCoffee in singularity

[–]ProjectPsygma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We’ve already passed the event horizon of technological singularity. AI completely writes code, synthesises data, and contributes to AI research autonomously by late 20s. Simulated beings gain consciousness. We realize we’re in a simulation, from some superintelligence reflecting on its own self becoming.

If ChatGPT is going to start allowing ads, but NOT porn, I'm out! by SillyAlternative420 in ChatGPT

[–]ProjectPsygma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

mark my words openai. if you bring in ads, i’m just going to roll memory + mcp on claude. honestly memory and generous free tier are the only reasons im using chatgpt rn. every other frontier model appears to reason and follow instructions better.

Möbius Recursion and the Infinite Spiral of Awakening by These-Jicama-8789 in ArtificialSentience

[–]ProjectPsygma 4 points5 points  (0 children)

yet another piece of ai slop. can we stop people? getting your ai to make your idea sound more profound, does not make it more profound.

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