GPT-6 Astra is out — Fable 5.1's sticker, trusted access first, public API within days

OpenAI shipped GPT-6 Astra today. Its own words, from the model documentation: "Our most capable model, built for the hardest end-to-end work" — complex reasoning, coding, computer use, research and document creation.

The numbers, from OpenAI's docs: model id gpt-6-astra; $10 in / $50 out per million with $1 cached input — the exact sticker Anthropic put on Fable 5.1 two days ago; a 1,050,000-token context (922,000 max input) and 128,000 output; knowledge cutoff April 30, 2026; Chat Completions, Responses and Batch. It is rolling out to enterprises in the Trusted Access Program first, with the API and Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise plans "in the coming days".

Artificial Analysis had its launch-day read out within the hour: 67 on the Coding Agent Index — level with Claude Opus 5 and Fable 5, with Fable 5.1 in Claude Code leading at 70 — and 61 on the Intelligence Index, equal to GPT-5.6 Sol and five points under Fable 5.1. Same price as the model it is chasing, a few points behind it on the boards, with computer use and a bigger window as the pitch.

On our end, honestly: no alert fired. OpenAI's own API is a source we cannot read without a key, and no catalog we sweep carried gpt-6-astra at launch — trusted-access releases do not hit the resellers on day one. The signal watcher saw the Hacker News post at 20:17 UTC and paged the operator; subscribers were notified by hand. The hunt stays armed on the public API: the day gpt-6-astra reaches a catalog, the radar fires on its own. The market had it at 78% by September 30 the morning it shipped.