visual-plan

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 for ordinary clarification or preflight; reserve it for the visual-intake mode when the user explicitly asks for a visual intake questionnaire. 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 and NEVER hand it over as inline chat content — no Markdown prose, ASCII sketch, table, or fenced wireframe. If the plan (or legacy agent-native-plans) tools are not visible, discover them through the host's tool_search first; if they are still missing, STOP and give the user the client-specific reconnect step rather than improvising an inline plan. Before publishing, or whenever a connector or auth error appears, READ references/connection.md in this skill directory — it is the single source of truth for the never-inline rule, connector discovery, and the per-client reconnect steps. Local-files privacy mode (after Tool Guidance) is the exception.

Core Workflow

This section describes the default hosted Plan MCP workflow. If AGENT_NATIVE_PLANS_MODE=local-files is set, or the user asks for fully local files/no hosted Plan writes, use Local-Files Privacy Mode instead; carry forward only the code-research and plan-composition guidance here.

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. For hosted plans, 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. For hosted plans, 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 or replace-blocks is unavoidable, call get-visual-plan immediately before the write, pass its plan.updatedAt as expectedUpdatedAt, and carry forward every existing block and visual surface. Never reuse a revision from an earlier read or feedback payload. For source-control friendly edits, use granular patch-visual-plan-source operations against the MDX files instead of regenerating the plan; replace-file is also destructive and requires the same fresh expectedUpdatedAt fence.
7. After every hosted-plan write, call get-visual-plan again and compare the persisted text, block IDs/counts, canvas frames, and prototype with the intended result. A successful mutation response is not proof that unrelated content survived. If the edit addressed agent-targeted feedback, only after this verification call resolve-plan-comment for the thread and consume-plan-feedback for its comments; do both so addressed feedback is neither visibly open nor returned as pending work.
8. For hosted plans, export with export-visual-plan only when the user wants a shareable receipt or repo-check-in artifacts.

Self-Review Before Handoff

This adversarial self-review pass is opt-in, not default: run it only for high-stakes plans — irreversible migrations, security-sensitive work, or when the user explicitly asks for extra rigor — and skip it otherwise. It roughly doubles the cost of plan generation, so the default for small, UI-only, single-decision, or ordinary plans is to skip it, not to run it. Keep the pass cheap and non-blocking when it does run:

• 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. When both surfaces are present, open the Wireframes tab by default; the prototype remains available as the interactive follow-up view.
• Default to wireframes. A clean, minimal UI, a high UX bar, or references to Linear/Vercel describe the content and density bar; they do not request full-fidelity design mode. Use renderer-owned wireframes unless the user explicitly asks for branded, pixel-accurate, production-like, or full visual design. This keeps every canvas screen inspectable and its full content visible.
• 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.

Treat “higher fidelity,” “pixel-accurate,” “polished mockup,” “production-like,” “real design,” and “not a sketch/wireframe” as design-first language even when the request also says “mockup.” For a new plan, use create-plan-design. For an existing plan, keep the same plan id and call update-visual-plan with a set-visual-render-mode patch using renderMode: "design" plus the upgraded screen HTML/CSS in the same update. Ground the result in the real app shell, tokens, typography, spacing, and states, and add stable data-design-id targets. Put scoped styles in each screen's css field, never in a <style> tag. The viewer-local Clean toggle only changes one browser's wireframe preference; it is not a fidelity upgrade. Do not create a duplicate plan to handle a fidelity follow-up.

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.

Authoring invariants

Treat these as data-integrity checks, not optional polish:

• content is a complete replacement. Pass either content or the mode's convenience arrays (screens/transitions or states/components), never both. The create actions reject mixed sources so a second payload cannot silently discard CSS, frames, or document blocks.
• A design screen's scoped css is part of the artifact. Keep it on both the prototype screen and its matching canvas frame, and use renderer-owned --wf-* tokens for portable color and typography.
• Rich-text data.markdown must contain actual runtime line breaks. Do not hand a plan a one-line Markdown value containing literal \n escape text, which renders the whole section as one heading. Escaped newlines are fine in code examples when the surrounding Markdown still has real line breaks.
• Canvas artboards do not scroll. Keep wireframe HTML in natural flow and set a larger frame height when a screen exceeds the surface preset; preserve the surface width and inspect the bottom edge at default zoom before handoff.
• After every hosted write, re-read the structured content and inspect the live Plan surface. A valid JSON payload is not proof that CSS loaded or Markdown rendered into the intended heading, paragraph, and list structure.

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. If the interaction itself must also be high fidelity, set each screen's renderMode to design and pass scoped styles through css; otherwise use create-plan-design for design-first review.
• 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 steps 6-7). Use set-visual-render-mode with renderMode: "design" when promoting an existing plan to high fidelity, together with deliberate screen HTML/CSS; render mode alone only removes sketch treatment. replace-blocks and full content replacement require expectedUpdatedAt from a fresh get-visual-plan call.
• 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. Prefer those targeted operations; replace-file requires expectedUpdatedAt from a fresh get-visual-plan call.
• import-visual-plan-source: create or replace a plan from an MDX folder.
• get-visual-plan: read the current structured plan, exported HTML, annotations, and plan.updatedAt; it also returns the MDX folder for source workflows. Re-read immediately before a destructive write for its concurrency fence and again after every write to verify persisted state.
• 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 — read references/local-files.md

When the user wants no hosted Plan database writes — no DB writes, no Plan MCP publish, fully local/offline/private planning, repo-owned source-controlled artifacts, or AGENT_NATIVE_PLANS_MODE=local-files — do not call any hosted Plan tool except the schema-only get-plan-blocks catalog lookup. Author a local MDX folder and preview it with plan local check / plan local serve / plan local verify. Before using local-files mode, READ references/local-files.md in this skill directory — it is the single source of truth for the full contract (catalog lookup, MDX folder layout, the local bridge commands, and the hosted tools you must not call). Carry forward only the code-research and plan-composition guidance from Core Workflow; everything hosted is replaced by the local bridge.

Interpreting comment anchors

This section applies to hosted plans with get-plan-feedback / update-visual-plan. In local-files mode, do not call hosted feedback or update tools; interpret file/chat feedback directly, edit the MDX files, rerun the local bridge check/serve/verify command, and report the new local URL.

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. When an edit addresses feedback, first re-read the persisted plan and verify the requested change. Only then call resolve-plan-comment for the addressed thread and consume-plan-feedback for its comments; never mark addressed feedback along only one axis.

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-plans

After that, /visual-plan, /visual-recap, and /visualize-repo are the installed slash commands. If you only need one command, use skills add visual-plan, skills add visual-recap, or skills add visualize-repo instead. 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.

For repo-wide visual docs, run npx @agent-native/core@latest visualize-repo --open to create/update agent-native.json, seed .agent-native/visual-docs/repo-overview, and open the local bridge.

If a Plans tool returns needs auth, Unauthorized, or Session terminated, do not keep retrying it — stop and give the user the per-client reconnect step from references/connection.md, then continue once the connector is available.

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