/thinking

Turns Extended Thinking on or off for the current session.

Turns Extended Thinking on or off for the current session. Without an argument, a picker with thinking effort levels appears. Takes effect immediately from the next response. From v2.1.205 also non-interactive (-p).

✅ WHEN TO USE IT?

Let Claude think harder on a tricky problem

Before a complex architecture decision, turn on /thinking so Claude reasons more extensively before answering.

Turn it off again for simple requests

After the tricky part is done, turn /thinking off again to get snappier answers on simple follow-up questions.

⛔ WHEN NOT TO?

Controlling overall effort across multiple turns

Per the docs, /thinking only toggles extended thinking before the next answer, not the general effort level (tool use, thoroughness).

Better: Use /effort to set the effort level (low through max/ultracode).

SOURCES

Claude Code Doku (offiziell) ↗ code.claude.com