Advisor/Executor setup in Claude Code: Opus 5.5 plans, Sonnet 5.5 runs

Melvin Vivas · X post · 2026-09-30 · Open on X

Topics: AI Dev Tools & Productivity, AI Agents, Tool Use & MCP · Level: intermediate

Summary

The creator sets up Claude Code with Opus 5.5 as the 'Advisor' (planning and reasoning) and Sonnet 5.5 as the 'Executor' (doing the work). Splitting the work this way gets strong reasoning from the large model and speed and lower cost from the smaller one.

Key points

• Use Opus 5.5 as the Advisor model in Claude Code for planning and hard reasoning.
• Use Sonnet 5.5 as the Executor model to carry out the plan.
• Pairing a strong planner with a fast executor balances quality, speed and cost.
• This is a general multi-model agent pattern (planner/executor).

Resources mentioned

• Claude Code · tool · code.claude.com · paid · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  Build agents and pipelines from the terminal; the guide's main agentic coding tool.
  Also in: Create Claude Code Plugins with /plugin-authoring (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Claude Code mods: customize behavior and UI with plugins (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap Overview: From ML Foundations to RAG, Agents & Ops (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes), SkillsBento: Free Plugin Marketplace for Codex and Claude Code (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 101 more
• Claude Opus 5.5 · tool · claude.ai · paid · open in a browser to verify · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  Anthropic's AI assistant, used throughout the guide to tailor resumes, add live roles to the tracker, match connections to target companies and find hiring managers.
  Also in: Generating a Repo Promo Video with a Claude Skill on Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Comparing Coding Models on the Same Task in Devin iOS (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Customizing Your Coding Setup with Pi Coding Agent Extensions (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), AI Engineer Roadmap Overview: From ML Foundations to RAG, Agents & Ops (Bashiri Smith on Facebook · notes) and 53 more
• Claude Sonnet 5.5 · tool · anthropic.com · paid
  Anthropic's newly released mid-tier Claude model, reported to be strong at agentic coding.
  Also in: Generating a Repo Promo Video with a Claude Skill on Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Customizing Your Coding Setup with Pi Coding Agent Extensions (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), GPT-6.1 and Sonnet 5.5 Released the Same Week (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Use Sonnet 5.5 instead of Opus 5.5 for faster video-clipping tasks (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 2 more

Try this

• In Claude Code, set Opus 5.5 as the Advisor and Sonnet 5.5 as the Executor.