AI & LLMs
What is plan Mode?
Plan Mode is a Bolt.new mode that works out an approach with you before any code is written, so you agree on what gets built before the build starts.
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Technical definition
Plan Mode is a Bolt.new operating mode in which the agent reasons about an approach and produces a plan without modifying project files. It is the counterpart to Build mode, where each prompt updates your code.
Because Plan Mode makes no changes to the project, it consumes fewer tokens than an equivalent build and rebuild cycle.
In plain terms
Plan Mode is the conversation before the work. You describe what you want, Bolt.new proposes how to do it, you adjust, and only then does anything get built.
Why it matters
The expensive mistake in AI building is building the wrong thing well. An AI will take a half-formed request and produce a complete, confident, wrong implementation, and now you are editing rather than starting.
Planning first fixes the decisions that are costly to change: the data structure, who can see what, what happens at each step of a flow. Those are also the decisions an AI will make for you, quietly, if you do not make them yourself.
For anyone on a token budget, the arithmetic is direct: planning costs less than rebuilding.
