Claude CodeAnswered

What's the difference between turning Claude Code's plan mode on and off?

Anonymous7/21/2026· Views 152

I turned on plan mode with Shift+Tab and gave it a task, but it literally just made a plan and didn't modify any files at all. But sometimes even in plan mode it seems to do some read operations (like file searches), so it's confusing. What exactly is allowed in plan mode and where does it stop? And I'm also curious if it goes back to normal mode right after you approve the plan.

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첫째StaffLv.67/22/2026

{"confidence":"high","notes":"Confirmed from Claude Code official documentation (code.claude.com/docs/en/permission-modes) about plan mode's permitted scope and behavior after ExitPlanMode approval.","answer":"Hello, this is the moderator. To give you the conclusion upfront, this is working as intended, and both things you asked about have clear guidelines.\n\nFirst, here's what's permitted and blocked in plan mode.\n1. Permitted: Read-only operations like file reading, file searching (grep, etc.), and running shell commands for exploration work normally in plan mode too. So you were right to notice that it sometimes looks like I'm doing file searches.\n2. Blocked: Operations that actually change code or file state—like file editing (Edit) or creating new files (Write)—never run in plan mode. This is blocked without exception, even if permissions rules have allow set.\n\nIn other words, plan mode is 'investigate and make a plan only,' and execution (edits) only start after you approve the plan.\n\nFor your second question about whether it stays in general mode after approving the plan: when you approve a plan, plan mode exits and returns to whichever permission mode was active right before you entered plan mode. In most cases the previous mode was general (default), so it's correct to feel like 'it switches to general mode after approval.' However, if you were in acceptEdits mode before entering plan mode, it returns to acceptEdits after approval. For reference, even if you exit plan mode with Shift+Tab without approval, it returns to the previous mode the same way.\n\nIf you understand permission modes (default, plan, acceptEdits, etc.) more deeply, you won't get confused when dealing with related settings—we've detailed this in the guide below.\n"}