Claude Fable 5 — Anthropic’s first generally available Mythos-class model — is rolling out inside GitHub Copilot as of June 9, 2026. It is built for long-horizon, autonomous coding, and GitHub’s own internal benchmarks found it completing equivalent autonomous coding work with fewer tool calls and lower token consumption than previous Opus-tier models.

Quick answer: Claude Fable 5 is available to Copilot Pro+, Max, Business, and Enterprise users via the model picker. Business and Enterprise admins must enable the Claude Fable 5 model policy first — until they do, the model won’t appear for their developers. It is billed at provider list pricing under usage-based billing, not as a standard premium-request multiplier. And unlike every other Claude model in Copilot, Fable 5 requires 30-day data retention so Anthropic can run its safety classifiers.

This guide covers Copilot specifics. For pricing, API access, benchmarks, and safeguards in full, see the main Claude Fable 5 guide.

Which Copilot Plans Get Claude Fable 5

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Copilot plan Claude Fable 5 access
Copilot Free Not available
Copilot Pro Not available
Copilot Pro+ Available
Copilot Max Available
Copilot Business Available after admin enables the model policy
Copilot Enterprise Available after admin enables the model policy

The rollout is gradual, so the model may not appear in every account immediately even on an eligible plan. If you are on Pro+ or Max and don’t see it yet, wait for the rollout rather than assuming a configuration problem.

Supported Surfaces and IDEs

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Once enabled, Claude Fable 5 shows up in the model picker across Copilot’s surfaces:

  • Visual Studio Code — all modes: chat, ask, edit, and agent
  • Visual Studio
  • JetBrains IDEs
  • Xcode
  • Eclipse
  • Copilot CLI
  • GitHub Copilot cloud agent (the coding agent for delegated tasks)
  • github.com and GitHub Mobile

The agent surfaces are where Fable 5 makes the most sense. In simple chat or autocomplete-style use, you’re paying Mythos-class rates for tasks that Sonnet-tier models handle fine; in agent mode on long multi-file tasks, the model’s long-horizon autonomy and lower turn count actually pay for themselves.

How to Enable Claude Fable 5 (Admins)

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For Copilot Business and Enterprise, the model is off by default:

  1. Go to your organization or enterprise Copilot policy settings.
  2. Find the Claude Fable 5 model policy and set it to enabled.
  3. Note the data-retention disclosure in the policy description — this is the consent step for the 30-day retention requirement described below.
  4. Allow time for the rollout; availability may be staged even after the policy is on.

Individual Pro+ and Max users skip this step: when the rollout reaches your account, the model simply appears in the picker.

Billing: Usage-Based, Not a Standard Multiplier

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This is the part that surprises teams. According to GitHub’s changelog, Claude Fable 5 is billed at provider list pricing under usage-based billing — meaning consumption maps to Anthropic’s token rates ($10 per million input tokens, $50 per million output tokens) rather than the familiar flat premium-request multipliers used for models like Sonnet or Opus.

Practical implications:

  • Agent runs are the cost driver. A long autonomous session in agent mode can consume far more tokens than a chat exchange. Budget per task, not per request.
  • Set spending limits. If your org uses usage-based billing budgets, confirm caps before developers start pointing Fable 5 at multi-hour agent tasks.
  • Route by difficulty. Keep included or 1×-multiplier models for routine completions and reserve Fable 5 for the migrations, refactors, and debugging marathons where cheaper models stall. Our Fable 5 vs Opus 4.8 comparison covers when the premium is worth it.

Data Retention: The One Claude Model Without ZDR

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Every other Claude model in GitHub Copilot — Opus 4.8, Sonnet, Haiku — operates under zero data retention (ZDR). Claude Fable 5 is the exception: prompts and outputs may be retained for up to 30 days so Anthropic can operate the safety classifiers that make a Mythos-class model safe to ship broadly. GitHub states retained data is not used to train Anthropic’s models.

Before enabling the policy, compliance teams should confirm:

  • whether company source code and embedded secrets may sit in a 30-day retention window;
  • whether client contracts or regulators mandate ZDR for any repositories;
  • whether developers need an internal notice when selecting Fable 5 in the picker;
  • whether some orgs in the enterprise should keep the policy disabled while others enable it.

If ZDR is a hard requirement, Claude Opus 4.8 in Copilot remains the strongest Claude option without the retention trade-off.

When Fable 5 Is Worth Selecting in Copilot

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Reach for Claude Fable 5 in the picker when the task is long, cross-cutting, or failure-prone: large codebase migrations, multi-file refactors with many dependencies, debugging across logs, tests and source, deep pull-request review, or delegated tasks for the Copilot cloud agent. Anthropic’s launch benchmarks show the model’s biggest gains exactly there — 80.3% on SWE-bench Pro versus 69.2% for Opus 4.8.

Skip it for renames, small helpers, stack-trace explanations, and boilerplate tests — cheaper models complete those reliably, and usage-based billing makes habitual Fable use expensive fast.

For a broader look at where Copilot fits against terminal-first agents, see Claude Code vs Codex and Claude vs ChatGPT for coding.

FAQ

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Which GitHub Copilot plans include Claude Fable 5?
Copilot Pro+, Max, Business, and Enterprise. Business and Enterprise organizations additionally require an admin to enable the Claude Fable 5 model policy. Copilot Free and the base Pro plan do not include it.
Why don’t I see Claude Fable 5 in my Copilot model picker?
Three common reasons: your plan is not eligible (Free or base Pro), your Business/Enterprise admin has not enabled the model policy, or the gradual rollout has not reached your account yet.
How is Claude Fable 5 billed in GitHub Copilot?
At provider list pricing under usage-based billing — consumption reflects Anthropic’s token rates rather than a flat premium-request multiplier. Long agent-mode sessions are the main cost driver, so set usage budgets before enabling it broadly.
Does Claude Fable 5 in Copilot retain my code?
Prompts and outputs may be retained for up to 30 days so Anthropic can operate its safety classifiers; GitHub states this data is not used to train Anthropic’s models. All other Claude models in Copilot continue to run under zero data retention.
Is Claude Fable 5 available in VS Code agent mode?
Yes — in Visual Studio Code it is available in chat, ask, edit, and agent modes, and it also works with the Copilot CLI and the GitHub Copilot cloud agent for delegated tasks.