Plan structure and refinement

Learn what a Coding Plan contains, how to review and iterate on it, and how version history works.

Every Coding Plan follows a consistent structure designed to give coding agents all the context they need. This page explains each section of a plan and how to refine it before handoff.

Plan structure

Each Coding Plan contains the following sections:

Section	Description
Summary	A 2–3 sentence overview of the implementation approach.
Research	Deep codebase analysis leveraging CodeRabbit’s project knowledge, identifying relevant files, patterns, dependencies, and architectural decisions specific to the project.
Design Choices	Key decisions made during planning, with rationale for each.
Phases	Logical chunks of work that should be done together.
Tasks	Individual tasks within each phase, with file-level specificity.
Agent Prompt	Machine-readable instructions for coding agents, available per phase and as a combined prompt.

Viewing a plan

Plans are displayed in the CodeRabbit web app with a dedicated plan viewer. Sections are collapsible, and a chat panel appears on the right for refinement.

Coding Plan in the CodeRabbit web app

Refining a plan

After reviewing a Coding Plan, you can refine it through conversation with CodeRabbit:

• Ask questions to get clarification on why CodeRabbit chose a particular approach.
• Challenge design choices by suggesting an alternative architecture or pattern.
• Request changes by asking CodeRabbit to add, remove, or modify specific tasks or phases.
• Provide additional context by sharing constraints, requirements, or team preferences that the original plan didn’t account for.

CodeRabbit responds and updates the plan accordingly.

Re-planning and version history

When you need more than a small refinement, you can regenerate the plan entirely:

1. Provide feedback through chat explaining what should change.
2. Trigger a re-plan: click the Redo button.
3. CodeRabbit generates a new plan version incorporating your feedback.

Every re-plan creates a new version. Use the version selector at the top of the plan viewer to:

• View previous versions of the plan.
• Compare what changed between versions.
• Switch the active version.

You can only chat about the currently active version of a plan.

Version history preserves accountability and a complete decision trail. You can always trace back to understand what was planned, when it changed, and why.

Next Step

Agent Handoff

Select phases and copy agent-ready prompts, or send plans directly to your IDE.