Where Claude Code saves your plans, and when it deletes them

Plan mode writes the most useful document of the day and then files it in a folder you have never opened. That would be fine, except the folder has a cleaner, and the cleaner keeps a schedule nobody mentioned.

This post is where Claude Code, Cursor and Codex each put the plans they write, how long those plans last, and the two lines of settings that stop the good ones from disappearing. Everything in it comes from each tool's own documentation, linked as it comes up and checked on 27 September 2026. The last section is about the thing I build, and it says so.

📍 Where Claude Code puts a plan

You enter plan mode with Shift+Tab, by starting a prompt with /plan, or by launching with claude --permission-mode plan. Claude reads the code, writes a plan and asks what to do with it. While the plan is on screen, Ctrl+G opens it in your editor. The plan mode docs cover the approval flow.

The plan is a Markdown file, and unless you have said otherwise it is written to ~/.claude/plans. That is your home directory, outside every project. The settings reference puts it in one line: the default is unset, "so Claude Code uses ~/.claude/plans".

So the plan for your auth rewrite is not in the repository with the auth code. It is in a shared drawer with the plan for every other project you have, under a file name you did not choose.