Plan approval is a gate in Agent Teams where teammates must present a plan to the lead (or the user) before doing any real work.

What it does

When plan approval is on, teammates enter plan mode on claim. They produce a plan explaining their intended steps. The lead reviews, either approves the plan or sends it back for revision. Only then does the teammate execute. It's the safety net for teams working on large or sensitive changes.

When to use it

Large refactors where wrong execution is expensive to undo.
Multi-agent jobs on critical infrastructure.
Any run where you want the lead to catch bad decompositions before they cost turns.
Teaching a multi-agent workflow while keeping guardrails on.

Gotchas

Approval adds latency. Don't use it for fast exploratory tasks.
A careless lead rubber-stamps bad plans. Quality depends on the lead's attention.
Too many revisions can stall a team. Set a revision cap.

Official docs: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agent-teams.md#require-plan-approval-for-teammates