📝 Claude Got a Hidden Planning Mode Called Ultraplan!? Everything You Need to Know

I. Introduction: Watching Your Terminal Plan... and Aging Visibly

Okay, so you just give Claude Code a clear prompt for your new project, press Enter and watch the terminal plan step by step. Then, you check your phone, make coffee, come back and the process is still running.

Local planning in Claude Code works but it can feel slow and difficult to manage. By the time the plan finishes, you are often already committed to the path it chose.

That's exactly the problem Ultraplan was built to fix.

Ultraplan is a cloud-powered planning mode for Claude Code. You trigger it from the CLI, the planning job moves to the cloud where multiple agents collaborate and you review the finished plan in a proper web interface before a single line of your project gets touched. Then the approved plan comes back to your terminal, ready to run.

This guide covers everything for you: what Ultraplan is, how to trigger it, what the workflow looks like step by step, how it compares to regular planning in real tests, the token tradeoffs, the requirements you need to meet and the small details you should know before using it.

II. What Is Ultraplan and Why Does It Exist?

When Claude Code plans locally, it's one agent thinking linearly inside a single terminal session. The process takes time, the output is a wall of terminal text and you can't really review it cleanly before saying yes.

For small tasks, that's fine. But for anything bigger, like a multi-file feature, a full dashboard or a complex workflow app, local planning can become a bottleneck. The plan isn't always well-structured enough for smooth execution, so Claude ends up course-correcting mid-build.

That's where projects start to get messy.

1. What Ultraplan Changes

Ultraplan changes this by moving the planning stage to the cloud, where the work is handled in parallel and presented in a clearer structure before any code is written.

Here's what actually happens under the hood:

• Claude Code sends the planning job to Anthropic's cloud container runtime.

• Three parallel exploration agents using Opus 4.6 analyze your project from multiple angles simultaneously.

• A critique agent reviews and tightens the result.

• The finished plan appears in a structured web interface organised into clear sections: existing context, files to create, files to modify, final verification and sometimes even diagrams.

• You review, leave comments, request adjustments and approve the plan.

• The approved plan returns to your terminal, ready to execute.

2. Why the Web Review Surface Matters

Rather than scanning a long block of terminal output, you see an organised document that is easier to understand and evaluate.

You can even react with emojis, which is simultaneously absurd and genuinely useful for quick feedback.

III. How to Trigger Ultraplan

Most people never touch Ultraplan, not because it’s hard but because they don’t know it exists or they trigger it the wrong way and assume it doesn’t work.

Let me show you how to access it in a second.

1. Two Ways to Start It

There are only 2 ways to trigger Ultraplan from the CLI and both are simple. The catch is that you have to be intentional about it.

• Option A: Use the slash command

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