[I work on Claude Code] I broadly agree with the author’s point: plan mode was useful, and is no longer useful.
In Claude Code, all plan mode does is add a little reminder to every user message along the lines of “you’re in plan mode, please don’t code yet”. It’s something I came up with late on a Sunday night many months ago, when I got tired of asking Claude to plan with me first before coding in each new session. Something people might not realize is plan mode has always been a prompt — it has never changed the toolset because doing so would break the prompt cache, and so would be expensive for users.
This worked well for a while, until a few months ago, using early versions of Fable, I realized that I wasn’t using plan mode anymore because the model just got it, and because for the increasingly complex work I asked the model to do, planning had become interactive and iterative. With Opus 5.5, I feel Opus has gotten to that point too.
For codebase understanding, I sometimes ask Claude to generate an artifact that explains some aspect of its changes. For complex diffs to core parts of the system, I will often ask it to make diagrams or even interactive demos so I can better understand the change and alternatives considered. I don’t do this very often, but it’s a useful way to explain code when you need it. I ask Claude to attach these artifacts to its PRs also, so others can understand and future Claudes have the context.
I urge you to have a look at tools like tuicr and hunk. It’s a missing component in the chat. I really want a proper chat interface, leave comments on the code and have them replied to. No clue how to implant it tho, it’s a hard UX problem IMO
I also didn't like the chat TUI for back and forth on things, especially on long markdown files where I felt like I needed to copy a line to comment on it. I wonder if LLM companies would rather skip a step and aim for a world where most people one-shot things, which sounds much more impressive.
I've been building <a href="https://crit.md" rel="nofollow">https://crit.md to keep that back and forth with agents - GitHub-esque interface and have agents respond to my feedback, iterating until I'm happy.
Admittedly like many others, I use it a lot less for actual plans now, models are indeed getting really good at just getting it.
I wodner what this product space will look like a year from now. Reviews are already dying.
bcherny · · focus · HN ↗
In Claude Code, all plan mode does is add a little reminder to every user message along the lines of “you’re in plan mode, please don’t code yet”. It’s something I came up with late on a Sunday night many months ago, when I got tired of asking Claude to plan with me first before coding in each new session. Something people might not realize is plan mode has always been a prompt — it has never changed the toolset because doing so would break the prompt cache, and so would be expensive for users.
This worked well for a while, until a few months ago, using early versions of Fable, I realized that I wasn’t using plan mode anymore because the model just got it, and because for the increasingly complex work I asked the model to do, planning had become interactive and iterative. With Opus 5.5, I feel Opus has gotten to that point too.
For codebase understanding, I sometimes ask Claude to generate an artifact that explains some aspect of its changes. For complex diffs to core parts of the system, I will often ask it to make diagrams or even interactive demos so I can better understand the change and alternatives considered. I don’t do this very often, but it’s a useful way to explain code when you need it. I ask Claude to attach these artifacts to its PRs also, so others can understand and future Claudes have the context.
estetlinus · · focus · HN ↗
tomasztomczyk · · focus · HN ↗
I've been building <a href="https://crit.md" rel="nofollow">https://crit.md to keep that back and forth with agents - GitHub-esque interface and have agents respond to my feedback, iterating until I'm happy.
Admittedly like many others, I use it a lot less for actual plans now, models are indeed getting really good at just getting it.
I wodner what this product space will look like a year from now. Reviews are already dying.