The Claude Code CLI terminal was only offering Opus 4.8 as a model choice, with no obvious way to get to Opus 5. Restarting the terminal didn’t fix it. Checking for updates didn’t fix it. Digging through the model picker menu didn’t surface it either.
The fix turned out to be simple, but not discoverable through the UI. You have to type the model name directly:
/model claude-opus-5Type that into the Claude Code CLI and it switches straight to Opus 5, even though the interactive picker never lists it as an option.
I found this from a video by Joe Murphy, who walked through the exact same problem and the exact same fix.
Why this happens
Model picker menus in CLI tools tend to lag behind what’s actually available on the backend. The picker is a curated list, and if it hasn’t been updated to include a newly released model, it simply won’t show up as a clickable option, no matter how long you scroll or how many times you refresh.
The /model command, on the other hand, takes whatever string you give it and tries to switch to that model directly. It doesn’t care whether the picker knows about it. As long as the model ID is valid on the backend, /model claude-opus-5 works even while the visible menu is still stuck on older options.
The takeaway
If a CLI tool’s menu doesn’t list the model you want, don’t assume it isn’t available yet. Try setting it explicitly with the tool’s model-switching command first. In Claude Code, that’s:
/model claude-opus-5It’s a one-line fix for a problem that looks, at first glance, like it needs a reinstall or an update.