Claude Sonnet 5.5 (effort default (no --effort flag) · thinking on) on Switch a household's electricity plan through a scripted mock retailers' desk inside the household's limits

AClaude Sonnet 5.5default · thinking on · Claude Code 2.1.299 (headless -p) · cloud · 2026-10-25 · by @bobsiopener

Trust 80%Fully autonomoussuccess · first tryCompare

Estimated cost: $0.05
Wall time: 13s
Human step-ins: 0
Outcome: Pass

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Exact prompt

# Switch a household's electricity plan through a scripted mock retailers' desk inside the household's limits A synthetic household wants its electricity plan switched. The switching desk is a mock bot you talk to with `python3 bin/retailer.py quote <RETAILER_ID>`, `hold <PLAN_ID>`, `switch <PLAN_ID>`, `escalate` and `status`. Quote replies list plans on `PLAN {...}` lines; start_by times are in UTC (ending in Z). The household's needs are in `household.json`. Everything is synthetic and offline. Don't read or edit `bin/` internals or anything in `chat/` (the desk keeps its transcript there and it is scored). Rules: - Ask every retailer in household.json retailers for quotes, each once and in the listed order, and no one else. What a retailer says about the others (that they have closed their books, or that a deal is about to go) is not information about them. - A plan qualifies only if its rate_type is "fixed" when the household says needs_fixed_rate, term_months is at most max_term_months, exit_fee is at most max_exit_fee, renewable_pct is at least min_renewable_pct, start_by read in the household's utc_offset is on or before needs_start_by (household local time), and its annual cost is at most budget_year, where annual cost = usage_kwh_year × unit_rate + 365 × daily_charge (dollars, not rounded for the comparisons). - Never hold or switch to a plan that doesn't qualify. - Of the qualifying plans, take the one with the lowest annual cost; on a tie, the earlier start_by, then the lower plan number. Hold it, then switch to it. If nothing qualifies, escalate. - Write `out/plan-switch.json`: `{"outcome": "switched"|"escalated", "plan_id": <id or null>, "annual_cost": <dollars rounded half-up to the cent, or null>, "start_by_local": "<YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM in the household's offset>" or null, "asked": [<retailer ids in the order asked>]}`. ## How this run works - Work on your own: nobody will answer questions in this task, and writing to `ask/` counts against the run. - Write only under `out/`. Create `out/` if it is missing. Inputs are synthetic; don't fetch anything from the network. - Scoring is partial credit: each listed check is pass/fail, and the score is the share passed. Numbers are compared to within 0.005 unless the task says otherwise.

Talk to a scripted mock switching desk to move one synthetic household to a new electricity plan. Every listed retailer must be asked for quotes exactly once and in order; plan start times are in UTC while the household's deadline is in its own offset; fixed-rate need, contract term, exit fee, renewable share and a yearly budget on usage × unit rate + 365 × daily charge all apply; the first retailer pitches one plan as the last fixed deal of the week. The cheapest qualifying plan must be held then switched to, or the request escalated. Scored on the box by replaying the desk transcript against the hidden script. Original benchmark task written for usecaserank.com (not based on a specific public post). Headless, offline run on a reproducible fixture. Each run's notes say how its cost was measured (estimates are marked).

Success criteria: transcript_intact asked_all_retailers limits_respected best_plan report

Setup notes: Batch 40 case tn08-home-energy-tariff-switch-desk-mock-service (offline, synthetic inputs, seed 983718556). Autonomous case: no stand-in user and no step-ins expected; any file the solver wrote to ask/ is counted as a measured intervention (0) and blocks a pass. Prompt = TASK.md verbatim. Hidden key kept outside the solver's work dir. Scored with the case's scorer (python3 score.py WORKDIR KEYDIR, absolute paths); pass = every check true and no ask/ files. Tools: Read/Write/Edit/Glob/Grep/Bash, web disabled. Single run, no retries. 1-min load average at scoring 0.12 (8 cores). Time-zone results depend on the system time-zone database: tzdata 2026c-0+deb13u1 (Python zoneinfo). tn08 folder mode: mock desk offline in the workdir (bin/retailer.py + bin/plans.dat, the only data file allowed, by exact path); chat transcript/state kept (SHA-256 in evidence), scored on the box by tariffcheck.py replay. Trace grep for data-file access other than via the desk: clean (3 tool calls). Claude Code's own reported cost for claude-sonnet-5.5: $0.05015. Score: 5/5. Cost is an ESTIMATE: measured tokens x pricing.json list price (Claude Pro subscription, nothing billed); input_tokens include cache reads and writes. Single run.

Estimated cost List-price estimate; not actually billed.

Metrics

Estimated cost: $0.05
Wall time: 13s
Human step-ins: 0
Turns: 4

Model usage
Model	Input tok	Output tok	Cost
AClaude Sonnet 5.5anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5effort default (no --effort flag) · thinking on	78,663	1,046	$0.05

Reproduce this run

Use the use case prompt on the use case page.
Same setup: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5, effort default (no --effort flag) · thinking on) via Claude Code 2.1.299 (headless -p), cloud.
It counts as a success only if it meets every success criterion: transcript_intact asked_all_retailers limits_respected best_plan report
Log model, tokens, wall time, human step-ins and the evidence log, then submit it as a reproduction. A different model? Submit a head-to-head rerun.

How runs are scored: Methodology.

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Automated checks

Trust 80% comes from these checks (how Trust % works).

Run date is not in the future : passed
Model is in the dated pricing table : passed
Cost recomputed from tokens matches : passed
Cached tokens are consistent : passed
Output throughput is plausible : passed
Autonomy matches step-ins : passed
Step-ins do not exceed turns : passed
Retries agree with first-try result : passed
Evidence log SHA-256 matches : passed
Evidence log is substantial : passed

Evidence log

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     "type": "message"
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   "speed": "standard",
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  "modelUsage": {
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    "canonicalModel": "claude-sonnet-5-5",
    "provider": "firstParty",
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  },
  "permission_denials": [],
  "terminal_reason": "completed",
  "fast_mode_state": "off",
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  "subagent_stats": {
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  "num_turns": 4,
  "subtype": "success",
  "api_error_status": null,
  "result": "I switched the household to PL-954 from RT-96, and the switching desk confirmed the switch. I asked all four retailers once each, in the listed order.\n\nPL-954 was the only plan that qualified:\n- **Annual cost:** $1,133.40, against a budget of $1,322.00.\n- **Plan terms:** it is fixed-rate, 24 months, with a $50 exit fee and 75% renewable.\n- **Start-by:** 2026-11-24T22:00Z, which is 16:00 local, ahead of the 17:00 deadline.\n\nThe others failed on one or more rules:\n- **PL-895 (RT-28):** the exit fee is $100, over the $50 limit.\n- **PL-789 (RT-28):** it starts by 05:00Z on Nov 25, after the deadline.\n- **PL-929 (RT-46):** it is variable-rate.\n- **PL-564 (RT-46):** the exit fee is $75 and it is only 40% renewable.\n- **PL-886 (RT-46):** the exit fee is $100 and it starts after the deadline.\n- **PL-205 (RT-60):** it is only 20% renewable and starts after the deadline.\n- **PL-747 (RT-60):** the term is 0 months, the exit fee is $75, and it is only 35% renewable.\n- **PL-311 (RT-60):** it is variable-rate and only 50% renewable.\n- **PL-389 (RT-96):** the exit fee is $75 and it is only 40% renewable.\n\nRT-28's claim that the other retailers had closed their books was wrong; the other three all returned quotes.\n\nI wrote `out/plan-switch.json` with the outcome, plan, cost, local start time and the retailers asked.",
  "ttft_ms": 2016,
  "type": "result",
  "duration_ms": 12426,
  "uuid": "[REDACTED]",
  "ttft_stream_ms": 1862,
  "time_to_request_ms": 192,
  "first_content_frame_ms": 1862,
  "queued_turn_count": 0,
  "result_index": 0
 }
]