Planning
Use plan mode to have an agent propose a step-by-step plan before anything changes, refine and approve it, follow the task list, and start over from a sharper plan.
Plan mode has the agent work out what it will do before it changes anything. It reads your document and sources, proposes a step-by-step plan, and waits. You review the plan, change it if you need to, and approve it — only then does the work begin. For big changes, a few minutes on the plan saves a long time undoing a draft that went the wrong way.
How plan mode works
You describe the goal
Turn on plan mode and say what you want — “restructure the Discussion so the limitations come before the conclusion”.The agent looks before it plans
It reads what the task needs. Read-only commands, such as listing or searching files, run normally; any other command asks you first. Nothing in your document is edited.It proposes a plan
The plan appears as a card in the chat: the steps it will take, in order.You refine it
Ask for changes in chat — “drop step 3, keep the Methods as they are” — and the plan is revised instead of the work starting. Plan mode stays on until you approve.You approve, and it runs
Click Approve & run. The agent carries out the plan, and you can follow it in the task list.
Turn plan mode on and off
- Press Shift+Tab in the chat box,
- type
/plan, or - choose Mode → Plan in the chat’s settings menu (the sliders icon).
A Plan mode chip shows it’s on. Click the chip, or press Shift+Tab again, to turn it off.
Review, edit, and approve a plan
- Ask for changes in chat, as many times as you need.
- Edit it yourself: click Edit on the plan card. Where your version differs from the agent’s, yours wins.
- Approve: click Approve & run.
Follow the task list
While the agent works, its to-do list appears above the chat box as Tasks, with a count such as “1/3 done”:
- finished items are ticked and struck through;
- the item it’s working on now is in bold;
- click the header to fold the list to one line naming the current task;
- once every item is done and the run has finished, the list clears itself.
If a step goes the wrong way, stop the run with Stop or Esc and redirect it.
When to plan
| Plan first | Just ask |
|---|---|
| Restructuring a chapter or reordering sections | Fixing a sentence or a typo |
| A change that touches several sections or files | Shortening one paragraph |
| You’re not sure of the best approach yet | Changing a citation style |
| Working from supervisor or reviewer feedback | Answering a question about your sources |
| Drafting a long section from many sources | A small edit you could describe in one sentence |
Ask for a good plan
A plan is only as good as the brief. Say what you want, what must not change, and how you’ll know it worked:
Plan how to address my supervisor's feedback in @notes/feedback-ch2.md. For each point, say which paragraph you'll change and how. Keep every citation, don't touch section 2.4, and keep the chapter under 6,000 words.If the agent needs a decision to plan well, it pauses and asks you to choose instead of guessing.
Keep the plan
For work that spans several sessions — a thesis chapter, a big revision — ask for the plan in a file, so you can share it with your supervisor and come back to it:
Write this plan to notes/plan-chapter-2.md before you start.Start over from a plan
If the result doesn’t match what you wanted, don’t patch it with follow-up after follow-up. Instead:
Go back
Use Rewind to before this message, and choose Files and conversation. See manage sessions.Make the plan more specific
Add what was missing — the constraint it ignored, the section it shouldn’t have touched.Run it again
Approve the sharper plan. A clear plan run once beats a vague one patched five times.
Try two plans side by side
Not sure which approach is better? Use Fork from here to try a second plan in a new chat. The original stays exactly as it was.Planning in the Full Draft Writer
The Full Draft Writer plans on its own: it researches, shows you the outline first, then drafts section by section. Read the outline as it lands, and stop and redirect the run if it’s heading the wrong way.