Episode 10: Skill 4 & 5 — Make Plan + Do (Planning & Execution)

⏱ Est. reading time: 10 min Updated on 5/7/2026

This episode's scenario: The blog needs a major feature — "comment notifications." This spans database changes, APIs, frontend components, and email integration. You want Claude to plan and execute on its own.

10.1 Why Plan + Do?

Small tasks work with one-liners: "Fix this bug." But complex, multi-file features without a plan lead to Claude:

  • 🔀 Losing sight of the big picture mid-way
  • 🚫 Skipping critical steps (like forgetting tests)
  • 💥 Breaking module B while fixing module A, without noticing

Philosophy: Think first, then execute step by step, verify each step.

10.2 Make Plan — Intelligent Task Planning

Make Plan synthesizes three sources to generate an executable plan:

  1. Your requirement ("Add comment notifications")
  2. Project memory (existing code structure from Observations)
  3. Current code state (Smart Explore scan)

Key Config Options

{
  "make_plan": {
    "require_verbatim_snippets": true,   // Referenced code must come from real files
    "allow_skipping_tests": false        // Every step must include verification
  }
}

10.3 Do — Staged Execution Engine

graph TD
    subgraph "Step 1"
        S1["Modify Schema"] --> V1{"Verify"}
        V1 -->|"✅ Pass"| CP1["📸 Checkpoint 1"]
    end

    subgraph "Step 2"
        CP1 --> S2["Run migration"]
        S2 --> V2{"Verify"}
        V2 -->|"✅ Pass"| CP2["📸 Checkpoint 2"]
    end

    subgraph "Step 3"
        CP2 --> S3["Create notification API"]
        S3 --> V3{"Verify"}
        V3 -->|"❌ Fail"| RB["🔄 Rollback to CP2"]
        RB --> FIX["Diagnose → Fix"]
        FIX --> S3
        V3 -->|"✅ Pass"| CP3["📸 Checkpoint 3"]
    end

    subgraph "Steps 4-6"
        CP3 --> MORE["Continue..."]
        MORE --> DONE["✅ All complete"]
    end

    style V3 fill:#ef4444,color:#fff
    style RB fill:#f59e0b,color:#000
    style DONE fill:#10b981,color:#fff

Key Features

Feature Description
Step-by-step execution One step at a time, no jumping ahead
Independent verification Each step runs tests/compile checks
Checkpoint snapshots State saved after each pass
Failure rollback Reverts to previous checkpoint on failure
Auto-diagnosis Analyzes failure cause and attempts repair

10.4 When to Use Make Plan + Do?

Task Scale Approach Reason
Fix a small bug Just have Claude fix it No plan needed
Add a function to one file Direct Simple task
Feature spanning 3+ files Make Plan + Do Needs step planning
Involves DB migrations Make Plan + Do Migrations are risky, need checkpoints
Major refactoring Make Plan + Do Must verify each step

Hands-On Exercise

  1. Propose a multi-file feature:
    "Add a bookmarks feature: users can bookmark articles,
and see all bookmarked articles on a My Bookmarks page."
  2. Watch Claude decompose the task with Make Plan
  3. Observe Do's step-by-step execution
  4. If a step fails, observe the rollback and repair mechanism

Coming Up Next

After months of development, you might wonder: what did we actually accomplish? Which features took the longest? Which bugs keep recurring? Next: Timeline Report — the project chronicle generator.

➡️ Episode 11: Skill 6 — Timeline Report