Discussion: Does Planning Make Too Many Decisions Too Early?

I used to think planning was the best way to do updates, it ensures Claude looks at all your code first and understands the update fully, plus you can review it before it starts implementing for any obvious misses. Not to mention you can plan 5 things at once, then they can be implemented faster.

But recently I've been doing more projects where Claude can run tests to see if the changes it's making are an improvement or not, such as balancing content in a game, or adjusting algorithms. So now I'm wondering if planning everything out in plan mode makes it commit to strategies too early, without testing different things out, or testing to see if the bug its meant to fix actually gets fixed by this plan. This is especially applicable to fable, who is better at long tasks and trying different things out.

Now I'm finding myself using Auto mode more often, so claude can just try all it's options and alter it's strategy mid-update when needed, rather than being stuck to implementing a plan from when it had less information.

Obviously planning can still be great for preparing lots of smaller updates where there's nothing to really figure out, just updating UI, this is more for bigger more complex updates.

I haven't done any A/B tests since I'm out of fable and low on weekly, but I'd like to hear anyone else's thoughts or theories.