/create_plan
Create detailed implementation plans through an interactive, iterative process. The agent researches the codebase, works with you to understand requirements, and produces a phased technical specification.
/create_planOr with a ticket file:
/create_plan thoughts/shared/tickets/eng_1234.mdProcess
Section titled “Process”- Gather requirements — The agent asks for the task description, constraints, and context
- Research — Explores the codebase to understand relevant components
- Draft plan — Creates a phased plan with specific changes and success criteria
- Iterate — Works with you to refine the plan until it’s ready
Plan Structure
Section titled “Plan Structure”Plans are saved to thoughts/shared/plans/ with the format YYYY-MM-DD-description.md. Each plan includes:
- Problem statement and context
- Phased implementation steps
- Specific file changes per phase
- Success criteria for each phase
- Checkboxes for tracking completion
Key Behavior
Section titled “Key Behavior”- Uses Opus — Deep reasoning model for thorough analysis
- Interactive — The agent asks questions and iterates on the plan with you
- Skeptical — The agent challenges assumptions and identifies potential issues
- Codebase-aware — Researches existing code before proposing changes
What This Adds
Section titled “What This Adds”Claude Code has a built-in Plan mode, and GitHub Copilot has a similar planning flow. These are useful for quick, session-scoped planning — but they have real limitations for non-trivial work:
-
No persistent, shared artifact. Plan mode produces a plan in the conversation. You can press
Ctrl+Gto open it in an editor and save it manually, but there’s no automatic persistence, no shared location a teammate can review, and no artifact another session can pick up./create_plansaves plans tothoughts/shared/plans/as versioned markdown files — automatically persisted, team-accessible, and available to future sessions. -
No phase structure or success criteria. Plan mode gives you a list of steps.
/create_planproduces phased implementation plans with specific file changes per phase, success criteria for each phase, and checkboxes that/implement_planmarks off as work is completed. This creates an auditable trail from plan to execution. -
No skepticism. Plan mode is accommodating — it takes your approach at face value and plans around it.
/create_planinstructs the agent to be skeptical: challenge assumptions, identify potential issues, and push back on your approach when warranted. This catches problems before code is written, not after. -
Shallow research. Plan mode spawns a single generic sub-agent for codebase reading.
/create_planspawns multiple specialized agents — codebase-locator, codebase-analyzer, codebase-pattern-finder, and thoughts-locator — in parallel, each focused on a different aspect of the research. It also searches your thoughts directory for prior plans, research, and historical context that Plan mode knows nothing about. -
No iteration workflow. If you want to refine a plan in Plan mode, you continue the conversation and hope the model tracks the changes. With
/create_plan, the plan is a file — you can review it offline, share it with your team, and refine it with/iterate_planin a separate session that reads the artifact directly.
In short: Plan mode is for thinking out loud. /create_plan is for producing a spec that your team can review and your agents can execute.
Variants
Section titled “Variants”/create_plan_nt— Skips thoughts directory integration/create_plan_generic— Generic version for use outside Hyprlayer