Plan mode

In a normal agent turn, the model reads some code, decides on an approach and starts editing, all in one go. If the approach is wrong you find out from the diff. Plan mode splits that turn in two. During planning the agent only has read-only tools: it can open files, search the codebase, inspect the database schema and read errors, but it can't write a file or run a command. It ends with a plan: the goal, the files it'll change, the dependencies it'll add and the order of work. Nothing is built until you approve it.

• Large or risky changes: multi-tenancy, a payment flow, an auth migration, a schema change.
• Debugging loops: when the agent keeps making the same wrong fix, a read-only investigation finds the cause without making things worse.
• Audits: "list every table and whether its policies restrict rows to their owner" is a question, not a change.
• Agreeing with others: a written plan is something a teammate can review before anyone spends a build on it.

For a one-line change, plan mode is overhead. Skip it.

Several coding agents now have a planning mode, and they work in broadly the same way. In Claude Code, plan mode is one of the permission modes you cycle through with Shift+Tab: Claude can read and propose but not edit until you approve. Cursor's Plan Mode, also reached with Shift+Tab, asks clarifying questions, researches the codebase and writes the plan as a markdown file you can edit before you click to build it. The common thread is that the code isn't touched until a human has agreed to the approach.

Vibely's agent has three modes: Build, Plan and Chat. Switch with the mode picker or Alt+P (Option+P on a Mac). In Plan mode, the agent investigates with read-only tools and, when it has a concrete change to propose, shows a plan card with Edit, Review and Approve. You can ask for revisions up to five times, and each revision shows what changed. A plan waits 30 minutes for a decision. On approval, Vibely saves the plan to .vibely/plan.md in your project, switches to Build mode and builds from it. Plan turns use credits like any other turn.