Opus 4.7 Fast Mode Ends July 24 — Migrate to 4.8 Before Your Calls Break

TL;DR: Opus 4.7 fast mode was deprecated June 25 and will error — not degrade — after July 24. Change your model string to claude-opus-4-8 before the deadline.

Anthropic deprecated fast mode for claude-opus-4-7 on June 25, 2026. After July 24, 2026, any request with speed: "fast" targeting Opus 4.7 returns an error rather than silently falling back to standard-speed Opus 4.7. The model itself without fast mode remains available past that date.

Migration is a one-field change: swap claude-opus-4-7 for claude-opus-4-8. Fast mode on 4.8 works the same way and is cheaper — $10/$50 per MTok input/output vs $30/$150 on 4.7. Claude Code requires v2.1.36 or later to use fast mode (already met by any recent install).

Check any services that pin the model string. A managed provider or CI environment that set claude-opus-4-7 explicitly needs updating before the deadline.

Why it matters: If you run Claude Code in fast mode via the API or have a deployment that hardcodes Opus 4.7, you have less than four weeks before requests start erroring. Audit your model strings now.

Sources: Fast mode docs — Anthropic Platform | Anthropic developer platform release notes