Ayman Nadeem · 2026-09-24 · notable
Ayman Nadeem — plan mode is the wrong tool for working with coding agents
Ayman Nadeem, founder of the coding app Nuanced and a former GitHub engineer, argues that plan modes in coding agents are losing their use as models improve. The post reached 306 points on Hacker News.
A founder who built a whole app around planning explains why planning as a separate step stopped working.
What is it?
In 'Plan mode is dead', Ayman Nadeem looks back at Nuanced, a desktop coding app he built around a planning step: chat through requirements, get a generated spec, review it, then implement. He says plan modes had two jobs — giving an agent precise instructions, and helping humans understand what they are building — and that the first is becoming obsolete as models get better.
How does it work?
Nadeem lists why the Nuanced approach failed. Users did not care about keeping the spec as an artifact. Better models made careful instructions unnecessary. Generated specs were dense but hard to read, and a 'Spec Tour' feature only added complexity. The fixed sequence of chat, clarify, spec, review, approve and implement did not match how people really think.
Why does it matter?
Nadeem argues that understanding what agents build matters more than ever, especially with many agents running in parallel, but that a document called 'the plan' is the wrong tool for it. He describes a loop instead — understand, act, inspect, clarify, adjust, act again — and admits the plain chat interface he once dismissed worked better than what he engineered.
Who is it for?
developers and builders of coding-agent tools