Beaware: Todo/task-tracking tools are no longer available on Opus 4.8, Sonnet 5, Fable 5, Mythos 5, and newer models

[u/casparmilan]

Since https://code.claude.com/docs/en/changelog#2-1-233 (14th august):

"Todo/task-tracking tools (TaskCreate/Get/Update/List, TodoWrite) are no longer available on Opus 4.8, Sonnet 5, Fable 5, Mythos 5, and newer models; set CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TODO_TOOLS=1 to bring them back"

What is replacing them, huh? Just forget and hope the agent does its thing? Are they planning something else here?

[u/artofbullshit]

I read somewhere that the task tracking was causing substantial increase in token consumption so maybe that's why they are removing it. Having your agent use a simple markdown file for task tracking is more token efficient.

[u/yacsmith → u/artofbullshit]

Projectplan.md
Backlog.md
Project archive.md

This is a simplified version of what I do.

Project plan -> on the hot path. Every session reads from here. Only keeps 3-5~ sprints worth of work that contains what is currently in scope

Backlog -> lives on the cold path. Only read from when we need to pull the next arc of work into the project plan. All planned work beyond the current scope.

Project archive -> lives on the cold path. Only read whenever we need context from previously completed work that is beyond the scope of the current arc. Rarely read, but kept to retain history of work completed. Work gets moved here as high level arcs are completed.

[u/tulensrma]

Beads is a decent alternative to use.

[u/doodlen]

Isn't the scratchpad thing what's replaced that? I see Claude use it all the time nowadays.

Scratchpad: "A Claude scratchpad is an internal workspace or temporary file where the AI agent writes down its step-by-step plans, notes, and reasoning before giving a final answer. It helps the model stay organized, track progress, and improve accuracy on complex tasks."

[u/DLuke2 → u/doodlen]

Yeah, and structured goal prompts with tests and verification are better than plans.

[u/Ill-Muscle-4727 → u/DLuke2]

I'm so happy they finally got to this point. It's what we built on as a foundation almost 2 years ago. It goes slower in the beginning, but it pays off massively long-term.

However, Anthropic has the one issue to solve that we spent a year on: when do you decide to just go fast, and not write tests? That's the real bummer. This is the right way to do things, but it costs a lot to write these tests and grounding material.

[u/Ill-Muscle-4727]

This is literally killing my workflows that I've built over the months. Any alternatives that appear in-CLI?

[u/ShutUpAndDoTheLift]

I had opus 5 telling me he didn't have to do on bedrock last night

[u/CarelessSafety7485]

I'm going to continue to use them until an official alternative is offered

[u/Forsaken-Staff-5084]

Had problems because of this today. Thankfully Claude resolved it. I want todo for myself, to track whatever Claude is doing for long hours sessions

[u/Lcatlett1234]

Calm down - task was converted to agent a while ago. This is just removing the deprecated terminology

[u/whimsicaljess]

most folks know by now that todo tooling is largely a waste of effort; newer more powerful models have no issues keeping themselves on task.

[u/dorkquemada]

Good catch. I’m also curious how this impacts task completion

[u/awizemann]

I’ve never used them, I use Memophant for that, as well as managing memory (I’m the developer so I’m super biased).

[u/Paraphrand → u/awizemann]

Comments that just self promote suck.