Nadeem clarifies distinction between two purposes of plan mode
2 Sep 25 7:07 PM · 2d ago · 7 comments · 1 source · development 2 of 6
Nadeem replied in the discussion to explain his core distinction: making agent instructions precise (now less necessary as models improve) versus helping humans understand outputs (becoming more important, but plan modes are the wrong interface for it). He noted his focus has shifted to interactive, iterative approaches.
“Where I've changed my mind is the interface for #2. I increasingly think an interactive, iterative work…”
aymandfireAyman Nadeem Developer, founder of NuancedBen Cherny Claude Code developer at Anthropicbcherny Anthropic team member
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What people said 7 voices · verbatim
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I'm actively watching understanding slip away from developers, code review getting paired down to no comment checkmarks, and codebases go to bloated messes that nobody can read. Axioms like engineers must understand and take responsibility for the code they ship are getting torn down, and the products coming out are reflecting conway's law…
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hi I’m the author of the post. I think that’s basically the distinction I’m trying to make.Historically, plan mode served two different roles:1. making the agent’s instructions precise enough to execute 2. helping the human understand what was about to happenI think #1 is less necessary as agents get better. #2 is going the other direction, it…
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When I draft my idea for the implementation of a feature or bug fix, I don't even trust a _human_ to understand what I mean the first time. There are _always_ either errors on my part, or erroneous assumptions on theirs. Everything from "this accounts for X and Y, but not Z which breaks the whole thing" to "this part of the idea directly…
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As someone that never used the built-in plan mode, but did use a lot of spec-driven development, I’m still finding that even with Fable having “plan” docs is still quite helpful.They’re most useful for broad changes (new features, refactors, etc.) where it’s helpful to avoid breaking changes or unnecessary scope expansion.The new models are great…
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Lately, I've been using Matt Pocock's “/grill-me” skill more and more, rather than plan mode or a complex, spec-driven set of skills. I made a personal fork of the skill to use Claude’s ask tool, which has a nicer UX.I used plan mode for two reasons: to review the choices before execution, and to execute with another model (i.e., using the barely…
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I like plan mode personally. I only use claude code for the web, and the questions claude asks me to clarify are usually pretty important - mostly because I was too vague or contradictory in my prompt, or what I was asking for conflicted with something else in the code. I don't know how claude would resolve that without plan mode.Also for session…
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With Claude, most tasks do not require discussion, I know exactly what to ask and what approach I want to take but for especially complex functionality with multiple possible options, I will ask it to list the tradeoffs and suggest an approach. It's still kind of 50/50 whether I take its suggestion or not; it's still a bit off in terms of weighing…
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