Plan Mode | Claude Code Recap Card M05

What is Plan Mode

Plan Mode is Claude Code’s “look but don’t touch” mode. In Plan Mode, Claude can read, search, analyze, and propose approaches, while restricting implementation changes and state-changing commands. It can write its designated plan artifact.

/plan              # Enter Plan Mode
Shift+Tab          # Cycle available permission modes
Approve the plan   # Exit and move to execution

Why it changes everything

Planning gives you an opportunity to review scope, dependencies and acceptance criteria before implementation. It does not guarantee a correct first attempt.

Claude explores the codebase without pressure to act. It identifies hidden dependencies, secondary impacts, edge cases. The resulting plan is more solid than what Claude would produce in reactive mode.

What plan mode allows

Reading files and exploring the codebase
Architecture and dependency analysis
Proposing approaches and action plans
Writing its designated plan file

What it prohibits:

Editing implementation files
Creating arbitrary project files
Executing state-changing commands
Git commits

When to use it

Situation	Plan Mode?
Exploring an unfamiliar codebase	Yes
Feature touching 3+ files	Yes
Significant refactoring	Yes
Typo fix or simple rename	No
Quick edit on a known file	No

Plan-validate-execute pattern

1. /plan
   Claude explores and proposes a structured plan

2. Review the plan
   Modify, refine, validate the steps

3. Approve the plan (or Shift+Tab to leave without approving)
   Supervised execution of the approved plan

Review the plan to catch scope, dependency and acceptance-criteria mistakes before implementation. The benefit depends on the task and the quality of the review.

Auto plan mode

An --append-system-prompt instruction can request a plan before each action. It is not a permission boundary; use Plan Mode and tool permissions for enforced restrictions:

# Practical alias
alias claude-safe='claude --append-system-prompt \
  "Before executing ANY tool, present a plan and wait for approval."'

Validate the plan before execution and measure total tokens, retries and accepted results on your own tasks. This workflow has no established universal savings rate.

Integration with agents

Set permissionMode: plan in a custom agent’s frontmatter for planning. A planner can pass a saved plan to an implementation agent; choose each model explicitly and keep file ownership separate.