Taming Opus 4.5's Efficiency: Using TodoWrite to Keep Claude Code on Track

Source: Dev.to

What actually happens

According to Anthropic’s docs, Opus 4.5 is designed to “skip summaries for efficiency and maintain workflow momentum.” Sounds great in theory.

In practice, you ask for a 5‑step process and it delivers the final result—skipping steps 2, 3, and 4. Efficient? Sure. But not what I needed.

I ran into this while working on a test review task. I wanted Claude to:

1. List all test items from the spec
2. Evaluate each item against criteria
3. Filter down to the essential ones
4. Generate the final test plan

Instead, it jumped straight to step 4: “Here’s your optimized test plan!” I needed steps 2 and 3 to understand why those tests were selected.

The fix: Make steps explicit with TodoWrite

Claude Code includes a built‑in TODO management feature called TodoWrite. When you register tasks explicitly, Opus 4.5 treats them as checkpoints it must complete.

At the start of your task, tell Claude Code to register the steps:

Before starting, register these steps using TodoWrite:
1. List all test items from the spec
2. Evaluate each against the criteria
3. Filter to essential items with reasoning
4. Generate the final test plan

Or simply add this instruction to your prompt:

Use TodoWrite to track each step. Do not skip any steps.

Once the steps are registered as TODOs, Opus treats them as real checkpoints—not optional stops it can skip.

A quick limitation I learned the hard way

If you register too many steps (7 +), Opus 4.5 may batch them together for “efficiency,” defeating the purpose.

Don’t do this:

1. Read file A
2. Read file B
3. Read file C
4. Analyze A
5. Analyze B
6. Analyze C
7. Compare results
8. Generate report

Do this instead:

1. Read and analyze all relevant files
2. Compare the implementations
3. Generate the report with findings

Use meaningful, higher‑level steps rather than micro‑tasks.

When this saved me

• Multi‑step refactoring where I needed to see intermediate states
• Debugging sessions where I wanted the reasoning at each stage
• Any task where Opus 4.5 kept “helpfully” jumping to the end

Opus 4.5’s efficiency is a feature, not a bug—but sometimes you need the journey, not just the destination. TodoWrite gives you that control back.