In Plan mode an agent researches and proposes, and does not edit or run anything. When it is ready it presents a plan and stops, and you approve it, send it back for revision, or reject it.
Why the plan is not in the chat
A plan is a document. A transcript is a feed. Boxed at the end of a feed, a plan scrolled out of view the moment the agent said anything else, and it had to be height-capped to stop it dominating the conversation it lived in. That is the wrong trade for the one thing in a session you are asked to read in full before anything runs.
So the plan gets a region: full height, to the left of the conversation, on its own surface. The right column stays what you are doing to the worktree. The left column is the brief you are doing it against.
The chat still shows a plan card, because the transcript is where you find out the agent stopped. That card carries no Approve button. The decision sits at the foot of the pane, underneath the plan it is about.
Approving, revising, rejecting
- Approve switches the session out of Plan mode and lets it start work. Both halves move together: the agent's permission mode and Fleet's own record of it.
- Send back with notes keeps the session in Plan mode and gives the agent your objection. The plan it comes back with is a new document owing a fresh decision, and Fleet treats it as one.
- Reject stops the work.
A plan sent back for revision is not described anywhere as approved. Inferring one state from another is how the two come apart.
When the pane opens itself
The pane opens on its own for a plan that still owes an answer, and otherwise it is yours to open and close. That override is keyed to the plan's own identity, not to the session: a revised plan arrives into an open pane even if you closed the pane on its predecessor.
An answered plan is still worth reading, so you can reopen it from the Plan pill in the session bar. It carries amber only while it still owes an answer, because an approved plan is a reference rather than an interruption.
Narrow windows
The rail, the plan pane and the review panel are three fixed columns, and below a comfortable width they leave the conversation no room. Fleet keeps one side column.
A plan that still owes an answer wins, because nothing has run yet and reading it is exactly what you are being asked to do. An answered plan yields to the review panel, because it has become a reference and the changes are live work. A column open on its own is never hidden, however narrow the window gets.
Plans in a squad
An orchestrator starts in Plan mode by default, so a squad's shape is agreed before any agent is spawned. That gate is a permission like any other, and it re-arms for each new round, because a plan gate is per feature: the second feature was otherwise the only one nobody planned. See the orchestrator.