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Claude Opus 5.5 (effort default (no --effort flag) · thinking on) on Choose the value-maximising project portfolio under a budget, an hours cap, prerequisites and exclusions

AClaude Opus 5.5default · thinking on · Claude Code 2.1.299 (headless -p) · cloud · 2026-10-21 · by @bobsiopener

Trust 80%Fully autonomoussuccess · first try
Estimated cost
$0.10
Wall time
16s
Human step-ins
0
Outcome
Pass

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Summary

Exact prompt

# Choose next quarter's project portfolio Inputs: `projects.csv` (cost, engineering hours and estimated value of each candidate project, plus prerequisites) and `constraints.json` (budget, available hours, pairs that can't both be funded). Pick the set of projects that maximises total value. - Total cost must not exceed the budget, and total hours must not exceed the available hours. - A project can only be funded if all its prerequisites are funded too. - At most one project of each mutually exclusive pair may be funded. - Then answer one what-if: if the budget were cut by 10% (hours unchanged), what is the best total value achievable? Write `out/portfolio.json`: `{"selected": [<project ids, sorted>], "total_value": <n>, "total_cost": <n>, "total_hours": <n>, "value_if_budget_cut_10pct": <n>}`. ## 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.

Pick the best set of 15-17 candidate projects under two competing limits (money and engineering hours), with prerequisite chains and mutually exclusive pairs, then answer a budget-cut what-if. The data is drawn so that ranking by value-for-money is strictly worse than the optimum and ignoring the hours cap gives a different set. The hidden key is the unique exact optimum. 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). Folder-restore note: this run's output files under work/out/ were lost in a 1:22 AM ET restore on Oct 21, 2026. The trace, step-in exchanges and output-hash list were checked against the recorded SHA-256 values and match; the hashes of the individual output files inside that list can no longer be recomputed. Measured data unchanged.

Success criteria: optimal_selection optimal_value cost_and_hours what_if_budget_cut

Setup notes: Batch 18 case t01-portfolio-under-budget (offline, synthetic inputs, seed 172216992). 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 0.59 (8 cores). Time-zone results depend on the system time-zone database: tzdata 2026c-0+deb13u1 (Python zoneinfo). Claude Code's own reported cost for claude-opus-5.5: $0.098044. Score: 4/4. 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
$0.10
Wall time
16s
Human step-ins
0
Turns
3
Model usage
ModelInput tokOutput tokCost
AClaude Opus 5.5anthropic/claude-opus-5.5effort default (no --effort flag) · thinking on56,1741,419$0.10

Reproduce this run

  1. Use the use case prompt on the use case page.
  2. Same setup: Claude Opus 5.5 (anthropic/claude-opus-5.5, effort default (no --effort flag) · thinking on) via Claude Code 2.1.299 (headless -p), cloud.
  3. It counts as a success only if it meets every success criterion: optimal_selection optimal_value cost_and_hours what_if_budget_cut
  4. 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

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Evidence log
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  "permission_denials": [],
  "terminal_reason": "completed",
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  "subtype": "success",
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  "result": "I wrote `out/portfolio.json`. The best portfolio is worth 1,147k in total value, and a 10% budget cut lowers the best achievable value to 1,064k.\n\nThere are only 17 candidate projects, so I checked every possible combination (about 131,000) against the budget, hours, prerequisite and mutually-exclusive rules. That makes both answers the true optimum, not an estimate.\n\n| | Value (k USD) | Cost (k USD) | Hours |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Best portfolio | 1,147 | 574 of 603 | 2,888 of 3,026 |\n| Budget cut 10% (to 542.7k) | 1,064 | \u2014 | hours unchanged |\n\n**Selected projects:** PRJ-A, PRJ-D, PRJ-H, PRJ-J, PRJ-K, PRJ-L, PRJ-N, PRJ-O\n\n- **Prerequisites:** J needs D and K needs H; both D and H are funded.\n- **Mutually exclusive pairs:** L is funded instead of B, and A instead of C.\n\nThe what-if costs 83k of value (1,147k down to 1,064k). The file lists the projects for the main answer only, not which projects the cut-budget answer would fund.",
  "ttft_ms": 2405,
  "type": "result",
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  "time_to_request_ms": 250,
  "first_content_frame_ms": 1613,
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 }
]

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