> In Claude Code, all plan mode does is add a little reminder to every user message
I was quite surprised when I learned this (when Claude Code edited a file despite being in plan mode). I had previously assumed "plan mode" was a harness level concern, and restricted what tools could be used. I didn't expect that it was simply an addendum to the prompt.
But I think it gave me some good insight into where the heads are at of Anthropic employees building this. Basically, leaning on pushing everything to the model. That's why alignment is so important: a "sufficiently advanced" model doesn't require any tooling infrastructure around it, and I suppose Claude Code devs are targeting that future. I had previously thought there was more to a harness, but with "auto" mode these days, it seems like there's no desire to build in that direction.
If you want to see an even more heavy/"extreme" example of this, there was this HN post & blog some months ago on Claude Design.
Basically, Claude Design is primarily a huge prompt.
That's all.
There's no "magic sauce", and with the right tools to call, even your local LLM can implement "Qwen Design".