Introducing Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5
Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 capabilities, API changes, and availability.
Claude Fable 5 is built for demanding reasoning and long-horizon agentic work. Claude Mythos 5 shares the same capabilities and is available only in limited release through Project Glasswing.
The headline change for integrations: Claude Fable 5 includes safety classifiers that can decline requests. Claude Mythos 5 does not include these classifiers. If your integration calls Claude Fable 5, plan for three changes: new response handling for refusals, fallback options for retrying on another Claude model, and new billing rules. Refusals, fallback, and billing on Claude Fable 5 summarizes all three.
Models
| Model | API model ID | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Fable 5 | claude-fable-5 | Built for demanding reasoning and long-horizon agentic work |
| Claude Mythos 5 | claude-mythos-5 | Shares Claude Fable 5's capabilities without the safety classifiers. Available through Project Glasswing. Successor to Claude Mythos Preview. |
Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 share the same specs and pricing:
- Context window and output: a 1M token context window by default, and up to 128k output tokens per request.
- Pricing: $10 USD per million input tokens and $50 USD per million output tokens.
For specs across all current models, see the models overview.
Refusals, fallback, and billing on Claude Fable 5
Claude Fable 5 includes safety classifiers that can decline certain requests. Claude Mythos 5 does not include these classifiers, so this section applies to Claude Fable 5 only. The following sections summarize what refusals mean for your integration. Each links to the full guide.
Refusals
When Claude Fable 5 declines a request, the Messages API returns stop_reason: "refusal" as a successful HTTP 200 response, not an error. The response also reports which classifier declined the request. See Refusals and fallback for response shapes and handling guidance.
Fallback
A request that Claude Fable 5 refuses can usually be served by another Claude model. There are three ways to retry:
- Server-side: Pass the
fallbacksparameter to have the API retry for you, using its"default"mode for Anthropic's recommended models or naming your own (in beta on the Claude API). See Server-side fallback. - Client-side: Use the SDK middleware to retry from the client on any platform. See Client-side fallback.
- Manual: Build the retry yourself, on any platform and in any language. See Fallback credit.
Billing
You are not billed for a request that is refused before any output is generated. When you retry on another model, fallback credit refunds the prompt-cache cost of switching, so you avoid paying that cost twice.
Availability
- Claude Fable 5 is available on the Claude API, Amazon Bedrock, Claude Platform on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry.
- Claude Mythos 5 is offered only to approved customers in Project Glasswing. For access, contact your Anthropic, AWS, or Google Cloud account team. Customers without access to Claude Mythos 5 can use Claude Fable 5, which does not require access approval and offers the same capabilities.
Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 carry 30-day data retention and are not available under zero data retention unless expressly authorized by Anthropic. Both are designated Covered Models. See Model-specific data retention requirements.
Prompting
Claude Fable 5 responds to the same prompting techniques as other Claude models, with a few differences in how to structure long-context prompts and reasoning instructions. See Prompting Claude Fable 5.
Messages API on Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5
Adaptive thinking is always on
Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 always have thinking enabled. Passing thinking: {"type": "disabled"} is not supported. To reduce or otherwise control thinking depth, use the effort parameter.
Raw thinking content is never returned
The raw chain of thought is never returned on Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5. The thinking.display setting controls what thinking blocks contain instead:
"summarized"returns thinking blocks with a readable summary of the reasoning."omitted"(the default) returns thinking blocks with an emptythinkingfield.
Pass thinking blocks back unchanged in multi-turn conversations on the same model. See thinking output on Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 for cross-model handling.
Supported features
Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 support:
- Effort
- Task budgets (beta: set the
task-budgets-2026-03-13header) - The memory tool
- Code execution
- Programmatic tool calling
- Tool result clearing through context editing (beta: set the
context-management-2025-06-27header) - Compaction
- Vision
Migrating from earlier models
Step-by-step instructions live in the migration guide:
- From Claude Mythos Preview: see Migrating from Claude Mythos Preview to Claude Mythos 5.
- From Claude Opus 4.8: see Migrating from Claude Opus 4.8 to Claude Fable 5.
Next steps
Specs and comparison for all current Claude models.
The only thinking mode on Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5.
How Claude Fable 5 declines requests, and how to retry on another model.
Avoid paying the prompt-cache cost twice on a retry.
A worked end-to-end example of refusal handling, fallback, and billing.
Control thinking depth and cost on Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5.
Fable-specific prompting techniques.
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