Claude Code plan mode
The most recommended of 10 coding agent features
Used to review and steer an agent's plan before it edits code and to understand changes; the common caveat is clunky UX, and newer models need it less.
Used to review and steer an agent's plan before it edits code and to understand changes; the common caveat is clunky UX, and newer models need it less.
63 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 41
- criticize it
- 22
- approval share
- 65%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 41 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Lets you review plans before edits
“This is why I love plan mode and switch to it as soon as I see the agent starting to deviate from the plan”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “When I reject AI code even if it works” “using plan mode first, since you can more or less see how it's going to proceed and steer it beforehand”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “LLM=True” “I want to know whats going to happen, at least at a high level, before changes are actually made.”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” - Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead”
- Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead”
- Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead”
Asks clarifying questions before building
“Claude's plan mode is great, especially when you add interviewing into the equation.”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” “Claude Code's plan mode asks questions to unblock itself, which is helpful.”
Comment from 28 Apr 2026 in “Blueprint: A planning copilot that one-shots bigger coding tasks” “the questions claude asks me to clarify are usually pretty important”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” Builds understanding of unfamiliar code
“I very regularly use plan mode not to even make a plan of action itself, but to better understand what possible issues might come up”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” “planning very useful as a phase when I'm doing things I am not intimately familiar with”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” “Plan mode is what makes it easy for me to update my mental model of the codebase”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Clunky UX, annoying chat option
“The "chat about this" option in Plan mode is useful but also annoying.”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Auto mode is now the default in Claude Code” “But the UX is just annoying and the models now do adhere when I tell them not to change anything.”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” Newer models or tools do better
“I used to think that I couldn't live without Claude Code "plan mode". Then I used Codex”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “Structured outputs on the Claude Developer Platform” “LLM now output good enough results without a plan.. for coding at least.”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” “results in much more robust plans than plan mode, in my experience”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “Fable 5 vs. GPT-5.6 Sol on an NP-Hard Problem: Does /goal help?” Unsafe edits and file deletion
“had it go off and read other repos and make changes just yesterday while in "plan mode"”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” “It’s bizarre to me that Claude Code doesn’t have more guardrails on plan mode.”
Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead” “it just randomly blows away the plan file without asking for permission.”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6” Recent changes removed features
“They backed out the "clear context and execute plan" thing recently. It's a bummer, I thought it was great.”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Anatomy of the .claude/ Folder” “stopping and starting a plan in Plan Mode seems like a regression”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Plan mode is dead”
Other coding agent features people recommend
The four most recommended other coding agent features, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code plan modeThis page | 41 | 22 | 65% | 11 | — | — |
| Claude Code auto mode | 20 | 29 | 41% | 6 | — | — |
| Claude Code Routines | 16 | 27 | 37% | 2 | — | — |
| Claude Code Dynamic Workflows | 13 | 10 | 57% | 4 | — | — |
| Claude Code Ultracode | 12 | 13 | 48% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 65 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It’s bizarre to me that Claude Code doesn’t have more guardrails on plan mode.”
“Plan mode helps me see the whole picture before committing.”
“Plan mode is a useful shortcut when I want to have an agent do read-only work”
“had it go off and read other repos and make changes just yesterday while in "plan mode"”
“Plan mode is still useful to me as it forces the model to double-check its plans”
“stopping and starting a plan in Plan Mode seems like a regression”
“But the UX is just annoying and the models now do adhere when I tell them not to change anything.”
“planning very useful as a phase when I'm doing things I am not intimately familiar with”
“LLM now output good enough results without a plan.. for coding at least.”
“plan mode lets me ensure that I have specified everything correctly before it gets built”
“I want to know whats going to happen, at least at a high level, before changes are actually made.”
“plan mode in claude was designed to speed up code churn”
“Plan mode is what makes it easy for me to update my mental model of the codebase”
“I use plan mode first to layout everything I can think of that I ultimately want”
“Code finds and corrects details or oversights in the task spec”
“I very regularly use plan mode not to even make a plan of action itself, but to better understand what possible issues might come up”
“I need a moment where I can still say “no” before it starts editing.”
“Plan mode was great, but I realized I progressed well beyond it.”
“the questions claude asks me to clarify are usually pretty important”
“Claude's plan mode is great, especially when you add interviewing into the equation.”
“It mostly seems like advertising that "our models are so smart you don't need to plan". But I find it to be a great mental review process for my workflow.”
“I give them big tasks, stuff that would take a human a few months to a year”
“I use Claude's Plan mode daily and it's great.”
“The "chat about this" option in Plan mode is useful but also annoying.”
“results in much more robust plans than plan mode, in my experience”
“This is why I love plan mode and switch to it as soon as I see the agent starting to deviate from the plan”
“when plan + code mode works - no need to change it. when it does not, because feature is complicated”
“builtin Claude Code skills like plan mode are enough”
“Claude Code's plan mode asks questions to unblock itself, which is helpful.”
“Use the Plan mode, create a thorough plan, then hand it off to the next agent for execution.”
“They backed out the "clear context and execute plan" thing recently. It's a bummer, I thought it was great.”
“It does indeed if it’s in plan mode, kind of just not as detailed.”
“Plan mode is great, but to me that's just prompting your LLM agent of choice to generate an ad-hoc, imprecise, and incomplete spec.”
“One thing I like about the current implementation of plan mode is that it'll clear context”
“it just randomly blows away the plan file without asking for permission.”
“using plan mode first, since you can more or less see how it's going to proceed and steer it beforehand”
“this is literally reinventing claude's planning mode, but with more steps”
“find it probably does a better job and is waaay faster”
“I used to think that I couldn't live without Claude Code "plan mode". Then I used Codex”
“now that there's planning mode it's a lot easier”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.