Planning
The model sketching the steps to reach a goal before it starts doing them.
Think of it like
Writing a to-do list for a road trip — book the car, map the route, pack — instead of just driving off.
Example
Told to “launch a newsletter,” the agent first lays out: pick a platform, draft a template, import contacts, schedule the first send.
How it actually works
Planning separates deciding what to do from doing it, which helps on long tasks where a single greedy step would wander off. Plans can be made once up front or revised as reality intrudes. The honest catch: models are decent at plausible-sounding plans and worse at plans that survive contact with a messy environment, which is why replanning matters.
For product teams
It is what lets an agent tackle a big ask instead of only bite-sized prompts.
For engineers
Generating an ordered sequence of subgoals or actions before execution, optionally revised as observations arrive.
Related
- Task Decomposition — Breaking the goal into the pieces a plan is made of.
- Replanning — Redoing the plan when reality disagrees.
- Plan Execution — Carrying the plan out, step by step.
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