Videos
What is Claude Sonnet 4.5 and how is it different from Claude Opus 4.1?
How do I use Claude in my IDE with CodeGPT?
What is the 200K token context window and why does it matter?
For the last few months, I have seen significant drop in the quality of code generated by GitHub Copilot. New models came but the quality of code became horrible. I asked "Claude Sonnet 4.5" model in copilot for a simple NLP code (dataset also provided in the workspace), yet it decided to do some random print statements instead of using any NLP libraries or any logic. It just made a large set of lists and dictionaries and just printed them out.
The same prompt when given to "Claude Sonnet 4.5" on the Claude website provides the perfect answer.
The other issue that I have recently seen is the "over-documentation". Why does my API server for a simple auth testing need 2 or 3 files worth 100-200+ lines of code of documentation?
Another recent issue was with some dependency-based issue for LangChain, which copilot took 1 hour and could not solve, gave it to Claude on the website and instantly the code works!
I have tried multiple different models including GPT-5-Codex, Grok-Code-Fast-1 and even tried with Ollama models (Qwen, GPT-OSS cloud models). There is only some slight change in the overall performance across models.
I even reduced the tool set available and add more tools and still the results are not great compared to other sources.
I used custom instructions and up to a certain point it works (no over documentation) but the quality of code is not good as it should be/ used to be.
Is there something that I can do to adjust this?
(vscode pm here) if you have any feedback on the new Claude models with Copilot let me know.
I know capacity is an issue - so I do apologize in advance if the experience is not smooth.
For now you should either use Github Copilot account, or wait for an update in Copilot to support Claude 4 standalone API keys.
VS Code Copilot’s “bring your own key" model picker is currently allow-listing Anthropic models and Sonnet 4 isn’t on that list yet, so it won’t show up when you add your own Anthropic key. This has been acknowledged publicly by a VS Code/Copilot PM and tracked in the following GitHub issue.
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/255783
https://www.an.com/news/claude-sonnet-4-5
Introducing Claude Sonnet 4.5—the best coding model in the world.
It's the strongest model for building complex agents, the best model for computer use, and it shows substantial gains on tests of reasoning and math.
We're also introducing upgrades across all Claude surfaces
Claude Code
The terminal interface has a fresh new look
The new VS Code extension brings Claude to your IDE.
The new checkpoints feature lets you confidently run large tasks and roll back instantly to a previous state, if needed
Claude App:
Claude can use code to analyze data, create files, and visualize insights in the files & formats you use. Now available to all paid plans in preview.
The Claude for Chrome extension is now available to everyone who joined the waitlist last month
Claude Developer Platform:
Run agents longer by automatically clearing stale context and using our new memory tool to store and consult more information.
The Claude Agent SDK gives you access to the same core tools, context management systems, and permissions frameworks that power Claude Code
We're also releasing a temporary research preview called "Imagine with Claude"
In this experiment, Claude generates software on the fly. No functionality is predetermined; no code is prewritten.
Available to Max users for 5 days. Try it out
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is available everywhere today—on the Claude app and Claude Code, the Claude Developer Platform, natively and in Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud's Vertex AI.
Pricing remains the same as Sonnet 4.
Read the full announcement
Hi,
I recently had a challenging experience trying to modify Raspberry Pi Pico firmware. I spent 2 days struggling with GitHub Copilot (GPT-4.1) in VS Code without success. Then I switched to Claude Code on the max plan and accomplished the task in just 3 hours.
This made me question whether the difference was due to Claude Code's specific capabilities or simply the model difference (Sonnet 4 vs GPT-4.1).
What are the core technical differences between Claude Code and using Sonnet 4 through VS Code extensions? (Beyond just context window size : are there fundamental capability differences?)
Does Sonnet 4 performance/capability differ based on how you access it? (Max plan terminal vs VS Code extension : is it the same model with same capabilities?)
If I connect VS Code using my max plan account instead of my current email, will I get the same Claude Code experience through agent mode? (Or does Claude Code offer unique terminal-specific advantages?)
I'm trying to figure out if I should stick with Claude Code or if I can get equivalent results through VS Code by using the right account/setup.