Sonnet
The balanced middle tier of the Claude model family. It is widely considered the sweet spot for agentic coding and general enterprise workloads.
What it is
Sonnet provides an optimal balance between high-end reasoning and execution speed. In the context of AI-assisted development, Sonnet (specifically versions like 3.5 and 4.6) is the de facto engine for most autonomous coding agents, offering near-Opus level coding capabilities at significantly lower latency and cost.
When you would use it
You default to Sonnet for almost all software engineering and agent orchestration tasks, as it provides the best combination of reliability, code generation skill, and speed.
Common operations
- Powering autonomous coding agents in IDEs like Cline and Windsurf.
- Executing multi-step tool-calling workflows reliably.