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1.1.31: new sessions ignore the saved model and start on Sonnet 5.5 with no effort or context tier #5031
Description
Short summary
New sessions on 1.1.31 ignore my saved model and start on Claude Sonnet 5.5 with no reasoning effort or context tier.
Affected version or release
1.1.31 (bundled CLI 1.0.102-0.unstable.r39844011292.g0401dd9). Worked fine on 1.1.30.
Installation context
macOS 26.6.2, local worktree sessions in my personal repos
What happened?
Since updating to 1.1.31 this morning, most new sessions start on Claude Sonnet 5.5 with no effort and no context tier, even though my saved selection is Claude Opus 5.5 / Extra high / long context. I have to switch it by hand every single time.
From the app log it looks like the new-session model picker hasn't restored the saved selection yet when the session gets created, so the app sends requested_model="<default>" and the CLI falls back to Sonnet. On 1.1.30 the picker always recovered in time, on 1.1.31 it mostly doesn't.
Steps to reproduce
- Use Claude Opus 5.5, Extra high, long context in a session so it's the saved selection.
- Start a new session in a repo project and send the first prompt.
- The session starts on Claude Sonnet 5.5 with default effort and context.
Expected behavior
New sessions start on my saved model, effort and context tier, like they did on 1.1.30.
Additional context
Counts from my ~/.copilot/logs/github-app.*.log files:
| 1.1.30 | 1.1.31 | |
|---|---|---|
model picker no-selected-model vs reasoning-effort-recovered |
18 vs 18 | 48 vs 7 |
repo sessions created with requested_model="claude-opus-5.5" (same repo) |
28 of 28 | 2 of 8 |
The one repo session that did get Opus today was created right after the picker logged reasoning-effort-recovered with recoveryDurationMs: 11085. The rest were created while it was still in no-selected-model.
Trimmed log lines from a bad session:
perf_span model_picker {"event":"reasoning-effort-hidden","hasSelectedModel":false,"hasStoredEffort":false,"modelSource":"unknown","reason":"no-selected-model","surface":"home"}
github_app::session::manager::lifecycle: retained CLI for session creation ... requested_model="<default>"
The session's events.jsonl then has session.start with selectedModel, reasoningEffort and contextTier all null, followed by session.model_change with source: "startup" and newModel: "claude-sonnet-5.5".
Related: #5026 (same symptom), #5028 (my ask for a pinned default model setting).
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