If you take one thing from Claude Code, make it this: Explore → Plan → Code → Commit. The developers who skip straight to “write me the code,” then spend the next hour arguing with the output. This workflow exists to prevent that.

Explore

Before writing a single line, Claude needs context. Without it, you get confident-sounding code that misses how your project actually works.

You can do this two ways. Ask Claude directly — “Explore our React component structure and data fetching patterns and tell me what you find” — or let exploration happen as part of planning (more on that below). Either way, read what comes back. It tells you what Claude is working with, and what it might be missing.

Plan

Plan mode is the best feature lazy developers skip. Hit Shift + Tab until you see “Plan mode” below the input. In this mode, Claude can read files and search the web but cannot edit anything.

Write your task like a ticket:

“I need to migrate our data fetching from useEffect + useState to React Query. Figure out which components are affected, whether our current error boundaries will still work, and how to approach the migration without breaking existing behavior.”

Claude reads the relevant files, does some research, and hands back a plan.

This is the place to course-correct, because it’s before any code is written. Ask it to revise sections, tighten the scope, or reconsider an approach. Once you approve and code starts flowing, changes get expensive fast.

One thing that catches people out: be explicit about what “done” looks like. Claude needs a clear success condition. Vague tasks produce vague results.

Code

Once you approve the plan, Claude works through the list. You can auto-accept file edits or review each one. In unfamiliar territory, review each. If you trust the plan, let it run.

A few things that make this go better:

Give Claude the right tools. If you’re building a web UI, install the Claude + Chrome extension so Claude can open a browser and test what it built. Without it, Claude is guessing at whether the UI works.

Have a test suite. Claude will run your tests to validate its work. No tests means no feedback loop — it ships and hopes. More importantly, make sure your tests reflect what you actually care about. A test suite Claude wrote to its own spec is not a source of truth for you.

Use CLAUDE.md. This file lives in your project root and loads automatically at the start of every session. Put your conventions, architecture decisions, and anything Claude keeps getting wrong. If the same issue comes up twice, write it down. If you notice Claude repeatedly hitting the same wall, ask it to save the fix there itself — future sessions will start with that context.

Commit

Before you push, run a sub-agent code reviewer:

“Review the changes from this session. Look for bugs, edge cases, and anything that doesn’t fit the project’s patterns.”

This is a fresh Claude instance with no attachment to the decisions that were just made. It catches things the original session rationalized away.

Then have Claude write your commit message. It knows what changed and why.

The non negotiable

CLAUDE.md is the most important file in your project. It persists across every session. Write down your architecture, non-obvious conventions, test setup — anything Claude needs to do good work from the start.

Context degrades in long sessions. As a session grows, accumulated context starts to weigh on decisions. When you move to a new feature or task, use /clear to reset. You lose the conversation, but Claude gets a clean slate.

Be specific in your prompts. “Fix the login bug” is not a prompt. “The login form submits but the redirect doesn’t fire when remember_me is checked — look at auth/callback.ts” is a prompt. The more specific you are, the less time Claude spends figuring out what you meant.

MCP servers remove a lot of back and forth. MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets Claude talk to external tools — databases, APIs, internal documentation. If Claude keeps asking for information it should be able to fetch itself, an MCP server is probably the right fix.

Sub-agents are useful for more than code review. You can spin up a parallel agent to research a library, check documentation, or investigate a bug while the main session keeps working. The sub-agent result comes back into the conversation without interrupting the flow.

The short version

Exploration gives Claude the context it needs. Planning creates a shared understanding of the goal before code is written. Coding is the back-and-forth until the plan is satisfied. Committing gets your work reviewed and pushed.

Skip any of these steps and you’re not saving time — you’re borrowing it from your next debugging session.