# Plan Mode

Activate Claude's extended thinking mode with multi-level planning depth from 'think' to 'ultrathink' for comprehensive strategy creation before implementation

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## Metadata

**Title:** Plan Mode
**Category:** commands
**Author:** JSONbored
**Added:** October 2025
**Tags:** plan-mode, extended-thinking, strategy, architecture, deep-reasoning, ultrathink
**URL:** https://claudepro.directory/commands/plan-mode

## Overview

Activate Claude's extended thinking mode with multi-level planning depth from 'think' to 'ultrathink' for comprehensive strategy creation before implementation

## Content

The /plan-mode command activates Claude's extended thinking capabilities with progressive depth levels to create comprehensive strategies before jumping into implementation.
FEATURES
• Multi-Level Thinking: Progressive depth from 'think' 8/10
Ready to proceed with Week 1-2? (y/n)

 ### Maximum Depth (ultrathink)
 **Command:**

/plan-mode "Design scalable microservices architecture" --ultrathink --architecture

 **Claude's Comprehensive Analysis:**

[Extended Thinking Mode: ultrathink]
[This may take minutes for thorough analysis]
Phase 1: Requirements Analysis
Current System:
• Monolithic architecture (250K LOC)
• PostgreSQL database (2TB)
• Peak load: 10K req/s
• Team: 20 developers
• Deployment: Weekly releases
Pain Points:
• Deployment requires full system downtime
• Database bottleneck at peak load
• Slow feature velocity (conflicting changes)
• Scaling inefficient (must scale entire monolith)
Goals:
• Zero-downtime deployments
• Independent service scaling
• Faster feature delivery
• Improved fault isolation
Phase 2: Service Decomposition Strategy
Boundary Identification:
1) User Service
 • Domain: Identity, authentication
 • Data: 5M users, 100MB
 • Load: 2K req/s
 • Team: 3 developers
2) Product Service
 • Domain: Catalog, inventory
 • Data: 1M products, 50GB
 • Load: 5K req/s
 • Team: 5 developers
3) Order Service
 • Domain: Transactions, fulfillment
 • Data: 10M orders, 500GB
 • Load: 1K req/s
 • Team: 4 developers
4) Payment Service
 • Domain: Billing, subscriptions
 • Data: 8M transactions, 200GB
 • Load: req/s
 • Team: 3 developers
5) Notification Service
 • Domain: Email, SMS, push
 • Data: Events only
 • Load: 3K req/s
 • Team: 2 developers
Phase 3: Technology Stack

 Services:
 user-service:
 runtime: Node.js (Fast user queries)
 database: PostgreSQL (ACID for users)
 cache: Redis (Session storage)

 product-service:
 runtime: Node.js (Heavy read workload)
 database: PostgreSQL (Primary)
 cache: Redis (Product catalog)
 search: Elasticsearch (Full-text search)

 order-service:
 runtime: Node.js (Transaction handling)
 database: PostgreSQL (Strong consistency)
 message-queue: RabbitMQ (Order processing)

 payment-service:
 runtime: Node.js (PCI compliance)
 database: PostgreSQL (Financial data)
 encryption: At-rest and in-transit

 notification-service:
 runtime: Node.js (I/O heavy)
 queue: RabbitMQ (Async delivery)
 providers: SendGrid, Twilio, FCM

Phase 4: Communication Patterns
Synchronous (REST/GraphQL):
• User → Product (Browse catalog)
• Order → Payment (Process transaction)
Asynchronous (Event-Driven):
• Order Created → Notification (Send confirmation)
• Payment Success → Order (Update status)
• Product Updated → Search (Index update)
Phase 5: Data Management
Database Per Service:
• User Service: users DB
• Product Service: products DB
• Order Service: orders DB
• Payment Service: payments DB
Shared Data Access Patterns:
1) API calls (preferred)
2) Event sourcing (eventual consistency)
3) CQRS (read replicas)
Phase 6: Migration Strategy (12 months)
Quarter 1: Foundation
• Week 1-4: Setup Kubernetes cluster
• Week 5-8: Implement API gateway
• Week : Extract User Service (lowest risk)
Quarter 2: Core Services
• Week : Extract Product Service
• Week : Extract Order Service
Quarter 3: Financial Systems
• Week : Extract Payment Service (highest risk)
• Week : Audit and compliance
Quarter 4: Supporting Services
• Week : Extract Notification Service
• Week : Decommission monolith
• Week : Optimization and monitoring
Phase 7: Infrastructure

 Kubernetes:
 nodes: 20 (auto-scaling )
 namespaces: dev, staging, production

 Service Mesh (Istio):
 - Traffic management
 - Circuit breaking
 - Mutual TLS
 - Observability

 Monitoring:
 - Prometheus (metrics)
 - Grafana (dashboards)
 - Jaeger (distributed tracing)
 - ELK Stack (logging)

 CI/CD:
 - GitHub Actions
 - ArgoCD (GitOps)
 - Canary deployments

Phase 8: Risk Assessment
High Risk:
1) Data consistency during migration
 Mitigation: Dual-write pattern, verify before cutover

2) Service discovery failures
 Mitigation: Health checks, circuit breakers

3) Distributed transaction complexity
 Mitigation: Saga pattern, compensating transactions
Medium Risk:
1) Team skill gaps
 Mitigation: Training program, pair programming

2) Infrastructure costs increase
 Mitigation: Right-sizing, spot instances
Low Risk:
1) Monitoring gaps
 Mitigation: Observability-first design
Phase 9: Success Metrics
Technical:
• Deployment frequency: 1/week → 10/day
• Lead time: 2 weeks → 2 days
• MTTR: 4 hours → 30 minutes
• Service uptime: % → %
Business:
• Feature velocity: +%
• Cost per transaction: -30%
• Customer satisfaction: +15%
Phase 10: Go/No-Go Decision
Recommendation: PROCEED
Reasoning:
• Clear business case (velocity + uptime)
• Manageable risk with mitigation plan
• Team buy-in confirmed
• Budget approved
Next Steps:
1) Form migration team (5 engineers)
2) Setup Kubernetes cluster (Week 1)
3) Begin User Service extraction (Week 5)
Estimated Total Cost: $450K (infrastructure + developer time)
ROI Timeline: 18 months
Approve architecture plan? (y/n)

 ## Thinking Levels Comparison
 | Level | Time | Depth | Use Case |
 |-------|------|-------|----------|
 | think | 30s | Surface analysis | Quick decisions, simple tasks |
 | think hard | 60-90s | Multiple alternatives | Feature planning, moderate complexity |
 | think harder | 2-3min | Deep analysis, risks | Refactoring, architecture changes |
 | ultrathink | 5-10min | Comprehensive strategy | System design, migrations |
 ## When to Use Each Level
 ### --think (Quick Planning)
 - Adding a new API endpoint
 - Fixing a known bug
 - Writing a simple feature
 - Code refactoring (small scope)
 ### --think-hard (Moderate Planning)
 - Designing a new feature
 - Database schema changes
 - Integration with third-party service
 - Performance optimization
 ### --think-harder (Deep Planning)
 - Large refactoring projects
 - Migration strategies
 - Architecture improvements
 - Complex debugging
 ### --ultrathink (Maximum Planning)
 - Microservices architecture
 - System-wide migrations
 - Technology stack changes
 - Multi-month projects
 ## Best Practices
 1. **Plan Before Code**: Use `/plan-mode` before implementing complex features
 2. **Interrupt When Needed**: Press ESC if Claude's plan goes off track
 3. **Approve Before Proceeding**: Use `--approve-first` for critical changes
 4. **Match Depth to Complexity**: Don't use ultrathink for simple tasks
 5. **Review Alternatives**: Extended thinking evaluates multiple approaches
 6. **Document Plans**: Plans serve as architecture documentation
 7. **Iterate on Feedback**: Refine plan based on team input
 ## Integration with Other Commands
 ### Plan → TDD Workflow

/plan-mode "Add payment processing" --think-hard --no-implement
REVIEW PLAN
/tdd-workflow "Implement payment processing per plan" --unit

 ### Plan → Subagents

/plan-mode "Refactor auth system" --think-harder --no-implement
REVIEW PLAN
/subagent-create --architect --code-reviewer --test-engineer
IMPLEMENT WITH SPECIALIST SUBAGENTS

 ### Plan → Checkpoints

/plan-mode "Database migration" --ultrathink
CREATE CHECKPOINT BEFORE PROCEEDING
IMPLEMENT MIGRATION
REWIND IF ISSUES ARISE


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Source: Claude Pro Directory
Website: https://claudepro.directory
URL: https://claudepro.directory/commands/plan-mode

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