“Planning is most useful when you're uncertain about the approach, when the change modifies multiple files, or when you're unfamiliar with the code being modified. If you could describe the diff in one sentence, skip the plan.”Anthropic (documentația Claude Code) · Best practices for Claude Code · 2026 · Best practices for Claude Code (code.claude.com, 2026) — secțiunea «Explore first, then plan, then code»
If you can describe the diff in one sentence, skip the plan; otherwise explore and plan first.
The recommended flow has four phases. Explore: in plan mode (Shift+Tab until "plan mode on", or --permission-mode plan at launch) Claude reads and answers but changes nothing — you can let it investigate without fear of a premature edit. Plan: ask for a concrete plan and, with Ctrl+G, open it in your editor before it continues. Implement: leave plan mode and let it code while checking against the plan. Commit: a descriptive message, a pull request. The cost is real — planning adds a whole turn — hence the rule in the quote: for a typo, a log line or a rename, go straight to code. For large features the guide proposes "interview to spec": ask it to interview you with questions until implementation, interface and edge cases are covered, then write a spec and start a fresh, clean session just for execution. Useful specs name files and interfaces, state explicitly what is out of scope, and end with an end-to-end check. A good prompt is specific: the file, the failing scenario, what "fixed" means, an existing pattern to follow. References with @file instead of descriptions, pasted images instead of "it looks roughly like this", documentation URLs instead of guesses.
Why it matters A planning turn costs little; an implementation started on a wrong understanding costs the whole session.