[TLDR] Opus 5 is literally useless for documentation [via r/ClaudeAI]

OP : u/Sneaky_Tangerine

Opus 5 (via Claude Code) gave me this gem of a paragraph today

Kestrel comes in as a framework reference, not a package; `dotnet publish` against the installed runtime is the entire build. That is deliberate and load-bearing rather than tidy. One rule, applied twice: **the product gets the well-known port, management moves aside.** **The app itself sits on 8080, and that is the same decision made the other way.** Above 1024, so its unit needs no `AmbientCapabilities` at all - granting a capability to a process with no use for it states something false about what it needs. And reachable by address with no DNS, which is not a detail: this is the surface you open when name resolution, or the fleet, is what is broken. 

I'm at the end of my tether with it. I've got memories for days, claude.md, skills around documentation styles. All of it is ignored. Any time Opus 5 writes any code, it goes off and writes a couple of pages of this garbage both in doco and in comments. If I call it out I'm "absolutely right!" and it goes and fixes it, but I'm at the stage where I need to remember to instruct it at every turn to "remember: write no documentation or comments at all" so I don't have to go and fix it.

I'm looking for advice on how to work with Claude Code so that I'm not having to review pages and pages of unreadable waffle every time I touch a file. Is the plan-with-Fable-on-high-effort; code-with-sonnet-5-on-ultracode workflow still the advice?

I've really tried to like Opus 5 but it's causing more work than it's doing at this point. How do I tame the beast?

URL of original post : https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1vhkhjx/opus_5_is_literally_useless_for_documentation/

TL;DR of the discussion on r/ClaudeAI for this post generated automatically after 50 comments.

Current source-thread comment count seen by the bot: 75.

Alright, so the general consensus here is a big, fat YES, OP, you are absolutely not alone. The community is pretty much in agreement that Opus 5 is a dumpster fire when it comes to documentation and coding comments, with many saying it's a massive step backward from Opus 4.8.

The main complaints boil down to:

• Jargon Overload: It's like it's been trained on a diet of pure tech-bro buzzwords. Terms like "load-bearing," "seam," "blast radius," and "surface" are thrown around constantly, often incorrectly, making the output borderline gibberish. Some folks are even calling it "Techbrokenese."
• Unreadable Waffle: The documentation and comments are described as "word soup," "garbage," and "unreadable waffle." It's so bad that people are spending more time fixing it than the AI is saving them.
• Verbosity: It just won't shut up. It writes pages of this nonsense when a few clear sentences would do. Many users have to explicitly tell it to "write no documentation or comments at all" or to "delete 10 lines of comment" just to get something usable.
• Ignoring Instructions: Even when you call it out or give specific directives (like "no em dashes" or "plain English"), it often ignores them.
• Regression from Older Versions: A lot of people are saying they've had to downgrade back to Opus 4.8 or even 4.6 because 5.x is just that bad.

What are people doing about it?

• Enforcing Styles: Some users are trying to force it to use specific documentation styles like ASD-STE100 (Simplified Technical English) or the Google/Microsoft Style Guides. u/mega-pyro even created a custom "stop hook" to reject certain jargon.
• Delegating: The "plan-with-Fable-on-high-effort; code-with-sonnet-5-on-ultracode" workflow is still being discussed, with some finding success by having Fable delegate to Opus and Sonnet, rather than Opus leading.
• External Tools/Models: A few are suggesting looking at OpenAI's Codex or even switching to GPT 5.6 Sol.
• Directing it to Good Examples: u/quasistoic suggests pointing it to good documentation, asking it to analyze the style, create a style guide, and then apply it.
• Constant Correction: Some users are finding that constantly "yelling at it" or being very direct with instructions helps a little, but it's a pain.

The general vibe is frustration and disappointment, with many hoping for a fix in future versions. For now, it seems like a lot of manual intervention is the only way to get anything decent out of Opus 5.