Plan Mode

Plan mode is Ora writing down what it intends to build before it builds it. It is for the requests where a wrong shape is expensive — a new test project, a suite rebuilt around a fresh specification, a change that touches dozens of cases. Instead of starting to create things and asking you to keep up, Ora produces a plan, waits for you to read it, and only then works.

The shortest path

1. Attach a specification or open a project, and ask for something large:

   "Generate a data-driven regression project from this specification, covering every endpoint"

2. Ora posts a card: "Plan mode: this request looks like a large construction task …, so Ora is drafting a plan first — mutating tools are on hold until you approve. Continue drafting, or exit plan mode and execute directly?" Choose Continue to get a plan, or Deny to skip planning and run the same request as an ordinary task.
3. Ora explores (read-only) and posts the plan card — the plan as a document you can read.
4. Read it, optionally Edit plan, then Approve & run. Work starts.

Nothing is created before you approve. During drafting, anything that would change your project is refused, and Ora says so rather than quietly working around it.

The plan card

The card is a document, not a dialog that blocks the panel. It shows the intent, the projects it applies to, the design (scope, the outline of suites → cases → steps, where assertions attach), the acceptance criteria, and a steps checklist — the list you will watch while it works.

Button	What it does
Approve & run	Approves the plan and starts the work. The card stays in the conversation with the note Plan approved, its buttons greyed.
Ask for changes	Sends the plan back to draft. Nothing is executed and no message is sent — you say in your own words what should change, and the next plan arrives as a new version.
Edit plan	Turns the card into a text editor. Your edited text becomes what Ora is held to; Save plan returns to the reading view. Editing is available only before approval — afterwards the plan is an agreed contract, and a change to its shape goes through re-planning.

You do not have to click anything to read the plan. It stays where it was posted, so you can answer a question, go and check something, and come back to it.

While the plan runs

The checklist is the point of the card, and it moves while you watch: each step is re-rendered with its status and a one-line note about what actually happened.

Status	Meaning
done	Delivered as planned.
deviated	Done differently, with the reason in the note. This is a finished position.
cancelled	Will not happen, with the reason. Also finished.
blocked	Waiting on something. Not finished — a plan with a blocked step cannot close.
pending	Not reached yet.

A plan closes when every position is closed. When it does, Ora reports a plan-vs-reality scorecard: each acceptance criterion against what actually happened, including where the estimate was wrong.

The artifacts pill at the bottom of the panel lists the plan (and any test designs the run produced) with its current status, so you can open it full size from anywhere in a long conversation instead of scrolling back to find it.

Stopping, resuming, re-planning

• Stop mid-plan and the turn ends cleanly. Type "continue" later and Ora resumes from the first unticked step — the plan is still in its context, and the card still shows where it stands.
• Reality diverging is not a reason to force the plan through. When endpoint counts are off by more than about a fifth, when one item keeps failing, when the work exceeds the estimate by half, or when it drifts outside the plan's own non-goals, Ora re-plans: the approved version is archived, a new draft appears, and you approve the new one.
• A plan that was never answered comes back when you reopen the conversation, stating that it is still a proposal. Ask Ora to re-submit it if you want the card live again.

Entering or leaving plan mode deliberately

You want	Do
A plan for the next request, whatever it costs	/plan then send the request, or /plan <request> in one line
No plan this time	/do <request> — it runs as an ordinary task, confirming as it goes
A plan for something the automatic gate did not flag	Just ask: "make me a plan for this before you touch anything." Ora can open the planning phase itself.
Out of plan mode entirely	/do, or answer Deny on the gate card

The automatic gate looks for a large construction task. It deliberately stays quiet for work that cannot mutate anything — an audit, an explanation, a single request — because an approval card for a task that changes nothing is friction with nothing to buy.

What approval allows

Approving a plan authorises the shape of the work, not an unlimited licence:

• In the turn your approval opened, ordinary construction calls (creating cases, adding steps, writing assertions) run without asking you each time.
• Anything destructive or irreversible still asks — deleting, overwriting, or sending to a real external service is decided call by call, plan or no plan.
• The next turn reverts to per-call confirmation. The plan itself stays in Ora's context across turns; what expires is the silent running.

Where the plan lives

A plan belongs to the conversation that made it, and is saved with it. Reopen the conversation and the card is back in its original position, rendering the plan as it currently stands — approved, completed, sent back, or still a proposal — with its checklist and notes. A restored card has no buttons: the decision it would take belongs to a turn that is already over. To act, send a message.

Notes

• A plan is a document, so its text is what binds. If you edit it, the edited text is what Ora works against; the version numbers in the card header tell you which draft you are looking at.
• The estimate in a plan (roughly how many changes and new items it will take) is an estimate. It is there so a large divergence is visible, not so it can be met exactly.
• Plan mode is Ora's behaviour in Studio. The aeth CLI runs test projects; it has no plan mode.