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Claude Code’s Plan Mode creates a user-editable plan.md before execution, but the documented CLI controls manage permissions and sessions—not a separate library of plan files. Anthropic’s reviewed documentation does not establish where that file is stored, how it is named, or whether it persists across session changes. You can resume the conversation that produced a plan; that is not the same as browsing or archiving plan files.
What Claude Code documents about plan files
Anthropic describes Plan Mode as asking clarifying questions and then building a user-editable plan.md before Claude executes the work. That makes the plan an editable planning artifact in the workflow, rather than a documented, independently managed record. See Anthropic’s Opus 4.5 announcement.
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The announcement does not give a directory, filename-generation rule, or plan-specific lifecycle controls. The Claude Code CLI reference documents permission mode and session-resume options, but not a command to list, edit, archive, or version plan files. The exact file location and persistence behavior therefore remain unestablished by these sources.
Which controls exist—and what they control
| Control | Documented purpose | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
--permission-mode plan |
Selects the plan permission mode when launching Claude Code, as documented in the CLI reference. | A browser, index, or manager for plan files. |
--continue |
Loads the most recent conversation in the current directory, according to the CLI reference. | A guarantee that a particular plan artifact will be found, preserved, or listed. |
--resume |
Resumes a session by ID or through interactive selection, according to the CLI reference. | A plan-file search or plan-specific recovery operation. |
These options address different parts of the workflow: plan mode concerns permissions, while continue and resume concern conversations. Do not treat session resumption as proof of a plan file’s location or independent persistence.
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How to continue work without assuming a plan-file path
- Record the session context you need. If you expect to return to planning work, note the project directory and, when available, the session ID. The CLI reference documents resuming by session ID, but does not describe a plan-file locator.
- Continue from the project directory when appropriate. Run
claude --continueto load the most recent conversation in the current directory. This targets a conversation, not a list of plans. - Resume a particular conversation when you have its ID. Run
claude --resume SESSION_ID, substituting the actual ID, or use the documented interactive selection. Do not infer from a resumed session that Claude Code offers separate plan-file management. - Use Plan Mode for a new planning workflow. Start with
claude --permission-mode planwhen you want the documented permission mode. Anthropic describes the resulting plan as user-editable before execution; the cited CLI reference does not provide a command to open an existing plan file by path.
Are named, persistent plans a shipped feature?
A proposal in the official Claude Code issue tracker describes a first-class plan system, including named plans and create, list, update, and execute concepts. The issue is marked “Closed as not planned,” so its proposed capabilities should not be presented as available Claude Code commands. It is evidence of a requested design, not product documentation: issue #30438.
For an installed version’s current behavior, check the Claude Code release notes and version-matched documentation. Anthropic’s setup instructions also describe claude doctor for checking installation details. Neither a rolling release note nor an installation check should be taken as a cross-version guarantee of plan-file location or persistence.
What remains unknown
- The exact directory where the plan artifact is written.
- Whether Claude Code uses a fixed filename or generates names in a particular way.
- Whether the plan survives session transitions, and under what conditions.
- Whether the artifact is automatically archived or can be recovered independently of its conversation.
None of these implementation details is established by the cited official documentation. Avoid relying on an unverified path or assumed archive behavior when organizing project records.
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