Robert Ta explains why developers should enable plan mode before using Claude Code to generate anything. The feature forces Claude to research your codebase and present a step-by-step plan first, letting you review before it touches files. Boris Cherny, who created Claude Code, treats plan mode as essential to avoid wasted tokens and debugging nightmares.
Before you let Claude Code write a single line of code, type this. Two words: plan mode. Plan mode tells Claude Code, think about the approach before you start implementing. Don't let it just YOLO and go off the rails. You'll probably get a lot of AI slop. That's what I've seen time and again. Watch what happens. You'll say a task like add email notification when a user signs up. Without plan mode, it's going to just start editing files and sometimes the wrong files and and sometimes in the wrong order. Then you're debugging for hours. With plan mode, it'll send off subagents to go research the state of the codebase, and then it'll present to you a plan. I'll modify the authentication controller, I'll add a notification service, I'll update the email templates, and then write these tests. Then you as the human review the plan. Hey, maybe don't touch the authentication controller. We're okay there. Use the existing system instead, but it catches mistakes before they become wasted tokens and long debugging sessions. Boris Cherny starts every single task in plan mode, and that's the guy that built Claude Code. Let it think first. Two words: plan mode before every task. You'll thank me later.
