Copilot's model picker loses Opus 4.8, Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Terra on Nov 16
GitHub will remove Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Terra from Copilot on November 16, according to its October 15 changelog. The vendors keep all three on their own APIs, so teams can call those directly or switch.
The Engineer · Build desk
Opus 4.8: 193 days from November 16, 2026 to its earliest tentative Anthropic retirement date, May 28, 2027. Opus 5: 250 days, to July 24, 2027. Anthropic says it gives at least 60 days' notice before retiring a publicly released model.
| Figure | Value | Note | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opus 4.8: Nov 16 to earliest tentative retirement | 193 days | Not sooner than May 28, 2027 | 23 |
| Opus 5: Nov 16 to earliest tentative retirement | 250 days | Not sooner than July 24, 2027 | 24 |
| Anthropic's notice before retiring a model, at least | 60 days | for a publicly released model | 4 |
What happened
- Anthropic's deprecations page lists Opus 5 and Opus 4.8 as Active, with tentative retirement dates of not sooner than July 24, 2027 and May 28, 2027.
- GitHub's changelog says Claude Opus 4.8 "will remain available to individual GitHub Copilot subscribers on annual plans".
- On Copilot Business and Enterprise, suggested replacements switch on automatically unless an admin disabled the global default or those models.
- In a September 18 entry, GitHub had already scheduled six other models, among them GPT-5.5, GPT-5.4 and Grok 4.5, to come out on October 19.
Why it matters
- Who has to decide decision Each team has to choose before November 16 between building its own client on a vendor API and re-testing prompts on the replacement models.
- What it limits constraint A model swap carries re-evaluation work, because prompts tuned on Opus 5 may behave differently on Opus 5.5.
- What it costs cost Running old and new models side by side before November 16 bills credits for both runs, so the evaluation window has a direct cost.
Calling the vendor API keeps the model and drops the Copilot surfaces. The removal covers Chat, inline edits, ask and agent modes, and code completions [11]. In our view, a team that goes direct supplies its own client for each one it uses.
Anthropic's retirement dates fall well after the Copilot date. Counted from November 16, the earliest retirement dates are 193 days out for Opus 4.8 and 250 for Opus 5 [23][24]. Both dates are tentative. What Anthropic commits to in writing is at least 60 days' notice before it retires a publicly released model [4].
OpenAI has put less in writing about Terra. The OpenAI page the DEV Community post cites does not deprecate it, so there is no retirement date to count from [5]. Terra appears there only as the recommended replacement for older models [5].
Per-token price does not separate the two routes. Since June 1, 2026, Copilot has billed most plans in AI Credits consumed "according to the published API rates for each model" [12]. The annual-plan exception is priced separately: Opus 4.8 carries a multiplier of 27 for annual Pro and Pro+ users on request-based billing, so each request counts as 27 premium requests [7].
The switch route is cheaper per token. On Opus 5.5, input and output tokens are each priced 20% below what either of the two replaced Opus models charges [13]. Moving from Terra to Sol keeps the input price and lowers output from $12 to $10 per million tokens [14]. Luna sits in a lighter class, and its output price is a twenty-fourth of Terra's [15], which works out to $0.50 per million tokens [25].
Cost per task is a separate question. Even at a lower rate, a model can cost more per finished change if its answers run longer, it opens more files or it needs extra turns [16]. The post says GitHub's notice does not address cost per task [17], and its author wrote, "I haven't measured these models against each other" [18].
GitHub's automatic switch does not reach model names written by hand in prompt files, scripts, agent configs and team docs. The changelog asks teams to update "workflows and integrations" before the date [19]. The post suggests two searches: `git grep -niE 'opus[ -]4[.-]8|5\.6[ -]terra'` and `git grep -niE 'opus[ -]5([^.0-9-]|$)'` [20]. The second matches opus-5 and Opus 5 but skips opus-5-5 and Opus 5.5 [20].
At the cadence of the two waves, we'd treat a hand-written model name as a standing maintenance cost.
What to watch
- Whether OpenAI adds gpt-5.6-terra to its deprecations page with a retirement date.
- Whether Anthropic issues the 60-day notice for Opus 4.8 or Opus 5 ahead of its tentative dates.
- Whether GitHub schedules another removal wave after October 19 and November 16, and whether it ends the annual-plan Opus 4.8 exception.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
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- [1]
Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Terra disappear from the GitHub Copilot model picker on November 16, 2026, per GitHub's October 15 changelog entry.
- [2]
After November 16 all three models can still be called from the vendors' own APIs.
- [3]
Anthropic's model deprecations page lists claude-opus-5 as Active with a tentative retirement date of 'Not sooner than July 24, 2027', and claude-opus-4-8 as Active with 'Not sooner than May 28, 2027'.
- [4]
Anthropic's deprecations page says it gives at least 60 days' notice before retiring a publicly released model.
- [5]
OpenAI's deprecations page does not list gpt-5.6-terra as deprecated. It appears there only as the recommended replacement for older models, such as gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07, which leaves on December 11, 2026.
- [6]
GitHub's changelog says: 'Claude Opus 4.8 will remain available to individual GitHub Copilot subscribers on annual plans'.
- [7]
For annual Pro and Pro+ subscribers still on request-based billing, GitHub's annual-plan multiplier table lists Opus 4.8 at a multiplier of 27, so each request counts as 27 premium requests.
- [8]
For Copilot Business and Enterprise, the changelog says suggested alternatives are switched on automatically unless an administrator has turned off the global default or disabled those models; in that case an admin must enable the replacements in Copilot's model policies or they will not appear in the model picker.
- [9]
A September 18 GitHub entry set October 19 as the removal date for six other models, including GPT-5.5, GPT-5.4 and Grok 4.5.
- [10]
October 19 to November 16 is 28 days.
- [11]
GitHub's October 15 changelog entry says the removal covers Chat, inline edits, ask and agent modes, and code completions.
- [12]
Since June 1, 2026, Copilot bills usage on most plans in AI Credits consumed 'according to the published API rates for each model'.
- [13]
Opus 5.5 costs 20% less per input and output token than both Opus models it replaces.
- [14]
In GitHub's pricing table, which lists rates per million tokens, moving from Terra to Sol keeps the input price and lowers the output price from $12 to $10.
- [15]
The same table files Sol in its top category, Terra under 'Versatile' and Luna under 'Lightweight', and Luna's output price is a twenty-fourth of Terra's.
- [16]
A model that writes longer answers, reads more files or takes more turns can cost more per finished change at a lower rate.
- [17]
GitHub's notice makes no claim about cost per task.
- [18]
The post's author wrote: 'I haven't measured these models against each other.'
- [19]
Prompt files, scripts, agent configs and team docs that name a model by hand will not follow GitHub's automatic switch, and the changelog asks teams to update 'workflows and integrations' before the date.
- [20]
The post suggests two searches, git grep -niE 'opus[ -]4[.-]8|5\.6[ -]terra' and git grep -niE 'opus[ -]5([^.0-9-]|$)'; the second matches opus-5 and Opus 5 but skips opus-5-5 and Opus 5.5.
- [21]
Until November 16 the old and new models can both be run in Copilot on the same tasks, and teams should expect to pay credits for both runs.
- [22]
Prompts tuned against Opus 5's output may behave differently on Opus 5.5.
- [23]
Anthropic's earliest tentative retirement date for Opus 4.8 (May 28, 2027) is 193 days after November 16, 2026.
- [24]
Anthropic's earliest tentative retirement date for Opus 5 (July 24, 2027) is 250 days after November 16, 2026.
- [25]
Luna's output price works out to $0.50 per million tokens.
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- dev.toCopilot Drops Opus 5 on Nov 16. Claude's API Keeps It Until at Least July 2027
1 article · October 16, 2026
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