AI Systems Atlas

G-04Plan-first Coding

/coding-agents/plan-first

Produce a reviewable plan before any edit; humans veto cheaply at the plan stage.

Step-by-step walkthrough4 steps
  1. The agent plans before touching a single file.
  2. The plan is the review surface: cheap to read, cheap to veto.
  3. Or sent back — a plan revision costs minutes; a diff revert costs hours.
  4. Approved → the edits execute a design a human already agreed to.
Key insight

The plan is the highest-leverage review surface in the loop: minutes to redirect there, hours to unwind a wrong diff.

Failure mode

Plans that are vibes: if the plan doesn’t name files and steps, approval is meaningless and drift is guaranteed.

Further reading
RelatedPlan → ExecuteHuman-in-the-loop

Elsewhere in the atlas

Harnesses →Security →Evals →Context →Tools →Ops →