visual-plan

name	visual-plan
description	Turn ordinary text plans into rich interactive visual plans with diagrams, file maps, annotated code, open questions, and UI/prototype review when useful.
metadata	{"visibility":"exported"}

Agent-Native Plans

Agent-Native Plans is structured visual planning mode for coding agents. Build the plan you would normally write in Markdown, but as a scannable document with editable blocks mixed in: inline diagrams, code snippets, open questions, and an optional top visual review area (wireframe canvas, live prototype, or both in tabs). Architecture and backend plans stay document-only; UI and product plans start with the top canvas/prototype (the Visual Surface Choice section owns that rule).

/visual-plan is the packaged command and main entry point. Choose the review mode from the task: UI-first when the work is primarily product UI and review should start with screens, prototype-first when review should start with a functional live prototype, design-first when review needs full-fidelity branded screens, or visual-intake when the user explicitly wants a questionnaire before planning. When a Codex, Claude Code, Markdown, or pasted plan already exists, /visual-plan uses that source plan as the starting point and builds the review surface from it instead of starting over.

When To Use

Create or adapt a visual plan whenever the plan would be better as a reviewable artifact than a chat paragraph. This includes modest work such as a single UI surface with states, a small workflow, a before/after product change, or a component/API/data-shape decision that needs alignment, plus larger multi-file, ambiguous, long-running, risky, or UI-heavy work. Use it when architecture / data flow / UI direction / options / open questions would benefit from inline diagrams or structured blocks, when the user needs to react to a direction before you implement, or when an existing text plan needs a richer review surface.

Plan Discipline

• Gate thoughtfully. A visual plan is a richer review surface, not only a tool for giant projects. Use it when the user needs to see, compare, comment on, or approve a direction before code, even for a modest UI/state/workflow change. Skip it for truly trivial, unambiguous work — typos, one-line fixes, a single well-specified function, anything whose diff you could describe in one sentence — and just make the change. Never pad a plan with filler and never ship a single-step plan.
• Research before you draft. Read the real files, actions, schema, and patterns first; name actual files, symbols, and data shapes instead of inventing them. Check existing actions/ before proposing endpoints and prefer named client helpers over raw fetch. Delegate wide exploration to a sub-agent. Lead with reuse: for each step, name what it reuses — existing actions, schema, components, helpers — before what it adds, so the plan explains the genuinely new delta instead of redescribing what already exists.
• Decide the hard-to-reverse bets first. For non-trivial backend, data, or API work, sketch where the feature is headed, then call out the decisions that are expensive to undo once data or callers depend on them — wire format, public ids, data-model shape, auth and ownership boundaries — and get those right in the plan even if most of the feature ships later. Then scope to the smallest first cut that proves the approach without foreclosing it, stating both what is in and what is explicitly deferred.
• Keep examples at the right altitude. When the user's idea is a broad framework, product, or operating-model change, do not collapse it into the first concrete example, provider, or sync path they mention. Separate the core abstraction from motivating examples and app/provider adapters. Use examples to make the plan legible, but label them as examples unless they are the whole requested scope.
• Publish standalone plans. If the user pasted, referenced, or already has a Codex / Claude Code / Markdown plan, treat it as source material, but rewrite the published plan as a clean standalone proposal. Preserve the source plan's useful intent and codebase facts, label inferred visuals as inferred, and avoid revision language such as "preserve the prior plan", "do not drop the old idea", "unlike the previous version", or "this revision changes...". A reader who never saw the chat or earlier drafts should understand the plan.
• Make the first read concrete. If the plan is meant to be shared with someone outside the chat, or if the concept is abstract, lead near the top with one concrete product example before mode tables, architecture, or roadmaps. For UI-capable concepts, that usually means a top-canvas app state that shows the real user workflow in product terms. Do not rely on phrases that only make sense in conversation, and do not frame the plan as "not the old idea"; state the positive model directly.
• Planning is read-only. Make no source edits while building or reviewing the plan. Start editing only after the user approves the direction.
• Clarify vs. assume. Do not ask how to build it — explore and present the approach and options in the plan. Ask a clarifying question only when an ambiguity would change the design and you cannot resolve it from the code; use the host agent's normal ask-user-question flow and batch 2-4 high-leverage questions before finalizing. Do not call create-visual-questions from /visual-plan. Otherwise state the assumption explicitly and proceed, and keep anything unresolved in the plan's single bottom question-form Open Questions block. For complex plans, do a final open-question pass before handoff: if a decision would affect architecture, scope, UX, data shape, or rollout, either decide it in the plan with rationale or put it in that bottom form with a recommended default.
• The plan is the approval gate. After surfacing it, ask the user to review and approve before you write code, and name which files/areas the work touches. Presenting the plan and requesting sign-off is the approval step — do not ask a separate "does this look good?" question.
• The document is the source of truth, not the chat. When scope shifts, update the plan with update-visual-plan rather than only changing course in chat, and make the updated document stand alone. Do not describe the update as a correction to an earlier draft inside the plan itself. Re-read the approved plan before major steps.

Create A Structured Agent-Native Plan — Never Inline

The deliverable is ALWAYS a structured Agent-Native Plan, not a chat-only plan. The hosted Plan MCP connector (plan server, or legacy agent-native-plans) is the default collaboration and commenting surface; it is not a reason to reject the planning pattern as an external dependency or rented layer. Plans are portable source artifacts (plan.mdx, optional canvas.mdx / prototype.mdx, JSON, and HTML export), and ownership-sensitive workflows can use local-files mode or a self-hosted/custom Plan app URL without abandoning the skill's review discipline. Do not advise the user to skip /visual-plan because the default surface is hosted; choose the right Plan mode for the user's ownership, privacy, sharing, and branding needs.

By default, create the plan via the Plan MCP connector. NEVER hand the plan over as inline chat content — no Markdown prose, ASCII sketch, table, or fenced wireframe. Some clients lazy-load connector tools through a deferred tool registry instead of showing the plan namespace upfront; before declaring the connector missing, search/load tools with the host's discovery surface (tool_search when available) for create_visual_plan, create_ui_plan, or get_plan_blocks, then use the Plan MCP tools it exposes. If the connector's tools are still missing after discovery, do NOT fall back to inline output: the usual cause is a connector that did not finish connecting this session (it registers zero tools), not auth. Stop and give the user the exact restore step for their current client: in Codex/Codex Desktop run npx -y @agent-native/core@latest reconnect https://plan.agent-native.com --client codex and start a new Codex session; in Claude Code run /mcp and choose Authenticate/Reconnect (or run the same reconnect command with --client claude-code and restart Claude). Auth is stored per client config/session, so one client's reconnect does not make another running client load tools. Never reinstall from scratch just to fix auth. Publish once the tool is reachable. Local-files privacy mode (after Tool Guidance) is the exception.

Core Workflow

1. Follow the host agent's normal planning flow: inspect the codebase, delegate wide exploration when useful, gather the info needed, and ask native clarifying questions as needed before generating the plan. If a source plan already exists, gather its exact text from the user's paste, a referenced file, or recent visible agent context; do not invent source text.
2. Call get-plan-blocks for the authoritative block catalog — do not author from memorized tags. Then call the mode-matched create tool: create-visual-plan for document-first plans (architecture, backend, data, refactor, API), create-ui-plan for UI-first plans, create-prototype-plan for prototype-first plans, create-plan-design for design-first plans, create-visual-questions only when the user explicitly asks for a visual intake questionnaire. When a source plan already exists, pass it as planText and preserve the original plan's useful intent while producing a standalone plan document, not a revision memo.
3. For UI/product plans, compose the top canvas first with the primary wireframes and annotated states, then write the document with native blocks (see references/canvas.md and references/document-quality.md). For broad product architecture plans with a user-facing implication, add a concrete "what this looks like in the app" visual before the abstract architecture or mode tables. Keep the document close to the standalone Markdown plan the agent would normally output. If an existing plan was provided, carry forward the right facts and decisions without referring to the previous draft or explaining how this version differs. For non-visual plans, skip the top visual surface (Visual Surface Choice below owns the rule) and put diagram, data-model, api-endpoint, diff, file-tree, code, and annotated-code blocks directly next to the relevant prose. Wide document layout is renderer-owned and intentionally allowlisted: only literal code-review surfaces (diff, annotated-code) and tabs blocks with vertical orientation or diff-like children break out wider than prose. Keep api-endpoint, openapi-spec, data-model, json-explorer, wireframe, question, and custom-html blocks in normal document flow unless their own renderer says otherwise.
4. Surface the returned Plans link or inline MCP App and ask the user to review. Always include the actual URL in chat so the next step is a click in CLI or other text-only hosts. When the host exposes an embedded browser/preview panel and a tool can open arbitrary URLs there, open the returned plan URL automatically for convenient review — a convenience and smoke test, never the only handoff or the access model. Plans should load out of the box for the local agent and local browser session; if a signed-in embedded browser cannot read a local plan that an anonymous/tool check can read, fix the app/action ownership or access path rather than patching one plan by hand. For high-stakes plans (architecture, backend, data, multi-file, or risky), also kick off the self-review pass in Self-Review Before Handoff while the user reads, instead of blocking the handoff on it.
5. Call get-plan-feedback before editing, after review, after any long pause, and before the final response. Treat anchorDetails, resolver intent, recent review events, and any focused screenshots from browser handoff as the source of truth for exactly what changed and exactly what each comment points at.
6. Apply changes with update-visual-plan, preferring targeted contentPatches. Treat the top-level content payload as a full replacement, not a merge; do not send a partial content object to add a canvas or one block. If a full replacement is unavoidable, first read the complete plan source/content, carry forward every existing block and visual surface, and verify the source/export afterward so the document body was not truncated. When the user wants source-control friendly edits, use patch-visual-plan-source against the MDX files instead of regenerating the plan.
7. Export with export-visual-plan only when the user wants a shareable receipt or repo-check-in artifacts.

Self-Review Before Handoff

For high-stakes plans — architecture, backend, data-model, migration, multi-file, or otherwise risky work — run one adversarial self-review pass before treating the plan as final. Skip it for small, UI-only, or single-decision plans where the cost outweighs the value. Keep the pass cheap and non-blocking:

• Surface the plan first, review concurrently. Post the link and let the user start reading, then run the review in parallel — never make the user wait on it.
• Review the written plan; do not re-research. Critique the plan text and its own blocks. The grounding was already done while drafting, so the review checks the output instead of re-exploring the repo.
• Spawn one skeptical reviewer whose only job is to find what is weak, missing, or wrong — not to praise. Point it at: hard-to-reverse decisions made implicitly or not at all (wire format, public ids, data-model shape, auth, ownership); steps not anchored in real files or symbols; a menu of options where the plan should commit to one; obvious missing decisions ("what happens when X?", "why not Y?"); and padding or single-step filler.
• Fix vs. ask. Apply clear-cut fixes yourself with update-visual-plan contentPatches — vague non-goals, unanchored claims, an obvious missing decision. Route genuine judgment calls back to the user instead: add them to the bottom question-form Open Questions block or batch them into the normal ask-user-question flow. Do not silently decide them.
• Do not surprise the user mid-read. On a large plan, apply the patches before the editor loads; otherwise note briefly that a self-review is running so the plan changing under them is expected. When you next respond, summarize what the review changed and what it surfaced for the user to decide.

Visual Surface Choice

Choose the surface before creating the plan or after reading the source plan. Do not add visual chrome by default:

For UI/product plans, the top canvas is usually the primary review surface. Put the first meaningful wireframes there, not buried as document-body blocks. Use multiple canvas artboards when states matter, such as the default view, an overflow menu or popover, a side panel, loading, or error. Put short annotations beside frames with targetId plus placement; keep implementation details, tradeoffs, file maps, data contracts, risks, and verification in the document body below the canvas.

When the user asks for a flow, storyboard, journey, wireframe, canvas, or "what this looks like", treat that as a canvas-first request. Make one artboard per user-visible state, connect only adjacent transitions, and use short canvas annotations for the product notes. Do not substitute a document-body diagram block for the requested storyboard just because HTML diagrams are faster to write; diagrams belong below the canvas for backend mechanics, architecture, or data-flow explanation.

Keep product wireframes and explanatory/meta diagrams separate. Start with pure screens that look like the app state under discussion, without callout prose or architecture notes embedded inside the UI. Put arrows, labels, contracts, data flow, and mode explanations in separate annotations, separate canvas diagrams, or the document body.

When the plan touches an existing app, inspect the current shell/components before drawing. The first artboard should look like the real app at the same density: existing sidebars, toolbar placement, overflow menus, app chrome, and framework agent chrome stay in their real places. Model secondary surfaces as separate states, such as a top-right overflow popover, sheet, panel, loading state, or separate AgentSidebar, rather than inventing a permanent inspector or folding framework chrome into the product UI.

• No visual surface for architecture-only, backend-only, data migration, copy-only, or otherwise non-visual plans. Do not use the top canvas for architecture diagrams, dependency maps, file plans, API contracts, or data-flow-only reviews. Use a strong document with local inline diagrams only when relationships need a visual explanation, usually one spatial diagram per recommendation or decision. Prefer grouped regions, layers, quadrants, matrices, or before/after panels over a single-axis chain unless the relationship is truly sequential.
• Canvas only for one static screen, a before/after comparison, a component state, a small popover, or a visual direction that does not require clicking. Put those wireframes in content.canvas and omit content.prototype.
• Canvas + prototype for multi-step UI flows, onboarding, wizards, review/approval flows, navigation changes, or anything where the reviewer needs to operate the behavior. Keep the static wireframes in content.canvas, add the aligned functional prototype in content.prototype, and rely on the top visual tabs to switch between them.
• Prototype-first when the user asks to operate the UI or when interaction is the main question. Use create-prototype-plan, which still preserves static mocks where useful.

For mixed canvas + prototype plans, reuse the same real labels, app statuses, and screen ids across both surfaces. The canvas is the inspectable static reference; the prototype is the interactive version of that same flow, not a separate design direction.

Wireframe quality — read references/wireframe.md

UI recap/plan wireframes must meet a strict quality bar — full-width chrome, pinned bottom bars, real product content, before/after comparability, the right surface preset, --wf-* tokens instead of hex, and no <html>/<style>/font tags. Before authoring ANY wireframe / <Screen> / WireframeBlock, READ references/wireframe.md in this skill directory — it is the single source of truth for HTML wireframe quality, shared word for word with /visual-plan and /visual-recap. Do not author wireframes from memory.

Canvas — read references/canvas.md

The canvas is the single source of truth for static UI mockups: the surface locks each artboard's footprint, mixed surfaces lay out in lanes, annotations are plain-text designer notes anchored by targetId/placement, and edits are surgical contentPatches. Before authoring or editing ANY canvas, artboard, or annotation, READ references/canvas.md in this skill directory — it is the single source of truth for canvas/artboard mechanics. Do not author canvas layouts from memory. Canvas artboards use the same HTML wireframe path as document-body WireframeBlock screens: author <Screen surface="..." html={...} /> with a semantic HTML fragment. Do not author fresh kit-tree children such as <FrameScreen>, <Card>, <Row>, or <Btn> inside canvas <Screen> tags; those are legacy compatibility markup for old plans and produce brittle canvas layouts.

Document quality — read references/document-quality.md

The document is a serious technical plan, not marketing: outcome-first, prose-first, self-contained, built from the right native blocks, with open questions in a single bottom question-form and a pre-handoff visual check. Before authoring the plan document, READ references/document-quality.md in this skill directory — it is the single source of truth for the document quality bar. Do not write the document from memory.

Good vs. bad exemplar — read references/exemplar.md

For a worked example of the bar — a great UI-first plan and /visual-plan, plus the anti-patterns to avoid — READ references/exemplar.md in this skill directory before authoring a plan.

Tool Guidance

• create-visual-plan: start one structured visual plan per agent task/run, or import an existing text plan by passing planText; content may include no visual surface, canvas only, or canvas + prototype.
• create-ui-plan: start a UI-first plan when the work is primarily product UI.
• create-prototype-plan: start a prototype-first plan with a functional top review surface.
• create-plan-design: start a full-fidelity branded Design-tab plan with an optional matching Prototype tab.
• convert-visual-plan-to-prototype: convert an existing HTML wireframe canvas into a prototype plan.
• create-visual-questions: use only when the user explicitly asks for a visual intake questionnaire, not as /visual-plan preflight.
• update-visual-plan: revise content, status, or comments with targeted contentPatches (see Core Workflow step 6).
• read-visual-plan-source: read the normalized plan as plan.mdx, optional canvas.mdx, optional .plan-state.json, and JSON.
• patch-visual-plan-source: apply granular MDX AST patches by stable block, artboard, annotation, component, or wireframe-node id.
• import-visual-plan-source: create or replace a plan from an MDX folder.
• get-visual-plan: read the current structured plan, exported HTML, and annotations; it also returns the MDX folder for source workflows.
• get-plan-feedback: read unconsumed human feedback. Use it frequently; it returns grouped threads, exact anchor details, expected resolver, and recent review-event payloads so agents can act only on the comments meant for them.
• get-plan-blocks: resolve block tags before authoring — do not memorize tags; call this first to get the authoritative tag names, required fields, and prop shapes from the live block registry.
• export-visual-plan: export HTML, Markdown fallback, structured JSON, and MDX files for repo check-in.

When the user critiques a plan's look or structure, fix the renderer or this skill — never hand-edit one stored plan. Turn feedback into better guidance.

Local-Files Privacy Mode

Use local-files privacy mode when the user explicitly asks for no DB writes, no hosted Plan database writes, no Plan MCP publish, fully local files, offline/private planning, repo-owned/source-controlled planning artifacts, or when AGENT_NATIVE_PLANS_MODE=local-files is set. Also use it when a user or repo policy says a plan must stay under their own brand, domain, source control, or infrastructure. In this mode the plan data must never be sent to the Plan MCP server or Plan app action surface. Schema-only block catalog lookup is allowed because it sends no plan content: use the MCP get-plan-blocks tool if it is already available, or run npx @agent-native/core@latest plan blocks --out plan-blocks.md and read that file before authoring MDX.

The local-files contract is:

• Read source context from local files and shell commands only.
• Fetch/read the block catalog before writing structured MDX. The plan blocks command calls the public no-auth get-plan-blocks route and writes only registry metadata to disk; use --format schema if exact nested fields are needed. If network access is unavailable, use the bundled references and rely on plan local check / plan local serve to catch invalid tags. For checklist and question-form, copy the catalog examples verbatim: checklist items need id and label; question-form questions need id, title, and mode; and each option needs id and label. plan local check validates these required fields against the renderer schema.
• Write the plan as a local MDX folder: use plans/<slug>/ when the user wants the artifact checked into the repo, or use a repo-ignored/temporary folder such as .agent-native/plans/<slug>/ or /tmp/agent-native-plans/<slug>/ when it should not be checked in. The folder contains plan.mdx, optional canvas.mdx, optional prototype.mdx, and optional .plan-state.json.
• Run npx @agent-native/core@latest plan local check --dir plans/<slug> before serving, then run npx @agent-native/core@latest plan local serve --dir plans/<slug> --kind plan --open. Report the returned local bridge URL from stdout or plans/<slug>/.plan-url. Treat .plan-url as a local token file and do not commit it. The URL opens the hosted Plan UI but reads from the localhost bridge on this machine, so it is not shareable across machines. On macOS, --open prefers Chromium browsers; if Safari opens, switch to Chrome/Chromium because Safari can block the hosted HTTPS page from fetching the HTTP localhost bridge. If the Plan app itself is running locally with the same PLAN_LOCAL_DIR, the /local-plans/<slug> route is also valid.
• For headless verification, run npx @agent-native/core@latest plan local verify --dir plans/<slug> --kind plan. It starts the bridge, checks the private-network preflight and JSON payload, prints diagnostics, and exits. If the browser hangs on "Loading plan", fetch the bridgeUrl from the verify/serve JSON to read the concrete validation error.
• Do not call create-visual-plan, create-ui-plan, create-prototype-plan, create-plan-design, import-visual-plan-source, update-visual-plan, patch-visual-plan-source, get-plan-feedback, export-visual-plan, or any hosted Plan tool for that plan except the schema-only block catalog lookup above.
• Treat feedback as file or chat feedback: update the MDX files directly, rerun the local bridge command, and summarize the new local bridge URL. Hosted comments, sharing, history, and publish/export receipts are unavailable until the user explicitly opts into publishing.

Local-files mode prevents plan content from going to the Agent-Native Plan database. It does not by itself make the coding agent's language model local; for that stronger privacy boundary, the host agent/model must also be local or otherwise approved by the user.

Interpreting comment anchors

get-plan-feedback returns rich anchors — read them before acting on any comment.

• Coordinate frames. targetX/targetY are percentages within the element named by targetSelector/targetKind. Bare x/y are percentages of the whole plan document. canvasX/canvasY are raw board-world pixels on the design canvas (board size given when available).
• Wireframe pins. Anchors on wireframes include targetNodeId and targetNodePath (e.g. card > list > listItem "Acme Inc") identifying the exact kit node. Use targetNodeId directly with wireframe node patch ops; use data-design-id values from design artboards with update-design-element-style. Prefer the node id/path over raw coordinates; fall back to coordinates plus the focused screenshot (red ring marks the exact point) only when no node id is present.
• Text quotes. Resolve textQuote against current prose using contextBefore/contextAfter for disambiguation. If ambiguous: true, ask the user — do not guess which occurrence is meant.
• Detached comments. get-plan-feedback flags threads whose quoted text no longer exists as detached (in detachedThreads). Reconcile these against rewritten content — never silently drop them.
• Routing. resolutionTarget is the only routing signal: act on agent, treat human as context only. @mentions are people to notify, never a routing signal.
• Two-axis state. Mark every ingested comment as consumed (consumedCommentIds on update-visual-plan). Set status=resolved only on agent-targeted comments you actually addressed; leave human-targeted comments open.

Visibility & Sharing

Use set-resource-visibility to change who can see a plan (e.g. public, login, or org-scoped). Use share-resource to grant specific users or roles access by email or role. Gate visibility before sharing any plan that covers unreleased or private work — default to the narrowest scope that meets the review need.

Setup & Authentication

There are two ways into Plans.

Coding agent (CLI). Install once with the Agent-Native CLI. The command installs the Plans skills, registers the hosted Plans MCP connector, and runs auth/setup for the selected local client(s) in the same step (a one-time browser sign-in at setup — this is intended), so the first tool call in that client does not hit an OAuth wall:

npx @agent-native/core@latest skills add visual-plan

After that, /visual-plan and /visual-recap are the two installed slash commands. The other planning modes (create-ui-plan, create-prototype-plan, create-plan-design, create-visual-questions) are MCP tools reachable from /visual-plan, not separate slash commands. Pass --no-connect to register the connector without authenticating, then run npx @agent-native/core@latest connect https://plan.agent-native.com --client all whenever you are ready, or choose a narrower --client. Auth and MCP tool loading are per client config/session.

Browser (people you share with). Open the Plans editor and create & edit with no sign-up — you work as a guest. Sign in only when you want to save or share; signing in claims the plans you made as a guest into your account.

Sharing and commenting require an account: public/shared plans are viewable by anyone with the link, but commenting on them needs an agent-native account.

For fully offline, no-account use, run the Plans app locally and sync plans to your repo as MDX. This local mode is a separate advanced path, not the default hosted flow.

If a Plans tool returns needs auth, Unauthorized, or Session terminated, do not keep retrying the tool. Stop and give the user the reconnect step for the client they are using: Codex/Codex Desktop should run npx -y @agent-native/core@latest reconnect https://plan.agent-native.com --client codex and start a new Codex session; Claude Code should run /mcp and choose Authenticate/Reconnect for the plan connector, or run the reconnect command with --client claude-code and restart Claude. To refresh every local client config that already has the Plan entry, use --client all, then restart/reload each client. Reconnect re-authenticates WITHOUT reinstalling and finds the entry by URL regardless of connector name. Never reinstall from scratch just to fix auth. Continue once the connector is available.

Hosted default: connect https://plan.agent-native.com/_agent-native/mcp. Do not put shared secrets in skill files.