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

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

Trust 80%Fully autonomoussuccess · first tryCompare

Estimated cost: $0.04
Wall time: 10s
Human step-ins: 0
Outcome: Pass

Compare with other models on this task →

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 104708996). 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 0.21 (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-sonnet-5.5: $0.042619. 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: $0.04
Wall time: 10s
Human step-ins: 0
Turns: 3

Model usage
Model	Input tok	Output tok	Cost
AClaude Sonnet 5.5anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5effort default (no --effort flag) · thinking off	56,563	976	$0.04

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 off) via Claude Code 2.1.299 (headless -p), cloud.
It counts as a success only if it meets every success criterion: optimal_selection optimal_value cost_and_hours what_if_budget_cut
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.

Was this useful?

⇄ Rerun on another model

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

[
 {
  "duration_api_ms": 8353,
  "stop_reason": "end_turn",
  "session_id": "[REDACTED]",
  "total_cost_usd": 0.042618500000000004,
  "usage": {
   "input_tokens": 6,
   "cache_creation_input_tokens": 6972,
   "cache_read_input_tokens": 49585,
   "output_tokens": 976,
   "output_tokens_details": {
    "thinking_tokens": 0
   },
   "server_tool_use": {
    "web_search_requests": 0,
    "web_fetch_requests": 0
   },
   "service_tier": "standard",
   "cache_creation": {
    "ephemeral_1h_input_tokens": 6972,
    "ephemeral_5m_input_tokens": 0
   },
   "inference_geo": "global",
   "iterations": [
    {
     "input_tokens": 2,
     "output_tokens": 311,
     "cache_read_input_tokens": 18764,
     "cache_creation_input_tokens": 747,
     "cache_creation": {
      "ephemeral_5m_input_tokens": 0,
      "ephemeral_1h_input_tokens": 747
     },
     "type": "message"
    }
   ],
   "speed": "standard",
   "fallback_credit": null
  },
  "modelUsage": {
   "claude-sonnet-5-5": {
    "inputTokens": 6,
    "outputTokens": 976,
    "cacheReadInputTokens": 49585,
    "cacheCreationInputTokens": 6972,
    "webSearchRequests": 0,
    "costUSD": 0.042618500000000004,
    "contextWindow": 1000000,
    "maxOutputTokens": 128000,
    "thinkingTokens": 0,
    "canonicalModel": "claude-sonnet-5-5",
    "provider": "firstParty",
    "costBasis": "list"
   }
  },
  "permission_denials": [],
  "terminal_reason": "completed",
  "fast_mode_state": "off",
  "fast_mode_disabled_reason": "sdk_opt_in_required",
  "subagent_stats": {
   "spawned": 0,
   "requested": {
    "background": 0,
    "foreground": 0,
    "unset": 0
   },
   "started_in_background": 0,
   "max_depth": 0,
   "spawned_by_subagents": 0,
   "completed": 0,
   "failed": 0,
   "killed": {
    "parent": 0,
    "user": 0,
    "system": 0
   },
   "refused": {
    "depth_limit": 0,
    "concurrency_limit": 0,
    "budget": 0
   },
   "by_type": {}
  },
  "safety_stops": 0,
  "is_error": false,
  "num_turns": 3,
  "subtype": "success",
  "api_error_status": null,
  "result": "I've written `out/portfolio.json`. The best portfolio has a total value of 1399 (k USD).\n\n- **Selected projects:** PRJ-A, PRJ-B, PRJ-F, PRJ-H, PRJ-J, PRJ-N and PRJ-O.\n- **Total cost:** 730k USD, against a 738k budget.\n- **Total hours:** 2,859, against 3,282 available.\n- **Budget cut 10%:** the best achievable value drops to 1318, with the budget at 664.2k and hours unchanged.\n\nI found these by checking every possible combination of the 15 projects against the budget, hours, prerequisite and mutually-exclusive rules, so both values are the true optimum. The selection satisfies the prerequisites (B is in for E's dependents, A for J, H for N) and the two exclusive pairs.\n\nI did not write out the project set for the 10%-cut case, since the output file only asks for its value.",
  "ttft_ms": 2062,
  "type": "result",
  "duration_ms": 9236,
  "uuid": "[REDACTED]",
  "ttft_stream_ms": 1279,
  "time_to_request_ms": 358,
  "first_content_frame_ms": 1279,
  "queued_turn_count": 0,
  "result_index": 0
 }
]