Until now we’ve talked as if every action gets a dialog. That’s only one mode — Ask permissions, the default you’ve been living in. But there’s a mode selector right in the app, and each setting moves a slider between speed and safety in a different direction.
You don’t have to memorize a long list. Three modes cover almost everything a normal day needs.
The three you’ll actually pick between
Ask permissions (the default). Every action that changes the world stops and asks. This is where you started, and it’s the right mode for unfamiliar work, a project you don’t know well, anything you’d be sorry to redo. When in doubt, this is the answer.
Plan. Claude can read and explore all it wants, but it can’t change anything — no edits, no commands that touch your machine. All it hands back is a written plan you can read and approve. Perfect at the start of a big task: get the plan right first, then switch to a mode that lets Claude execute. (Level 6 lives here.)
Auto. Claude works without stopping at every step — but a separate safety check vets each action first and blocks the genuinely dangerous ones (a deploy, a force-push, code pulled off the internet). Think of it as the fast lane, with a seatbelt. Good for a long stretch of routine work you trust. It has some account and model requirements, so it isn’t always offered.
Switching between these is a click in the mode selector — no settings file, no command to remember.
The two you should know exist but rarely touch
The app and the underlying tool have a couple more modes, built for power users and hands-off automation:
- Accept edits — Claude edits files freely but still asks before running commands or reaching the network. A middle ground for a long, edit-heavy session where your real safety net is being able to roll the files back.
- Bypass permissions — every approval is skipped, no safety check at all. This exists for throwaway sandboxes and locked-down automation, and it’s dangerous everywhere else. Treat it like driving with no seatbelt and no airbag: you might be fine, you might not. You’ll meet the automation world properly in a later level.
You don’t need these yet — just know the list runs longer than three.
How to choose
The rule is short:
Pick the slowest mode you can tolerate for the task in front of you.
Not the fastest mode you can get away with. The slowest one that doesn’t drive you crazy. The slower mode catches more of Claude’s mistakes; the faster mode trades that catch rate for momentum. Most of the time, the catch rate is worth more.
A rough field guide:
| Situation | Mode |
|---|---|
| New project, new task, code you don’t know | Ask permissions |
| Starting something big you don’t fully understand yet | Plan |
| A long stretch of routine work you trust | Auto |
| Anything shared, anything in production, anything with money attached | Ask permissions |
The pull of the fast mode
The fastest modes feel great for about three minutes. That’s why people reach for them, and it’s why most of the bad Claude stories start with someone in a fast mode pointed at the wrong thing.
If you find yourself reaching for a faster mode because the dialogs are noisy, the next lesson has a better fix: instead of turning off all the asking, turn off only the boring parts.
What’s next
Modes are the broad lever. There’s also a precise one — telling Claude exactly which boring actions it can take without ever asking. That’s the next lesson, and it’s the one that pays off forever.