This morning I've turned auto mode back on, I'm only using it during Claude's exploration phases of my workflow and then I'm reading the full transcript (which includes some thinking info). So far, this seems to be quite close to what I want, and an improvement over my previous "manual all the time" mode.

Still leaving manual approval for all edits. Combined with reading the full transcript of the exploration, I feel I stay in the loop pretty well in this first test.