planning-with-files vs Understand Anything
Which should you use? A side-by-side look at what each one does, who it suits, what it costs, how hard it is to set up, and where each falls short.
Open source · MIT
A file-based planning skill that keeps AI coding agents on track across resets and crashes.
Open source · MIT
Turns a codebase, wiki, or docs into an explorable graph you can search and ask questions about.
The short answer
Choose planning-with-files if you need…
- Developers running long multi-step tasks in Claude Code or Codex CLI
- People who lose agent progress when the context window fills or is cleared
- Teams wanting a plan that lives in the project as plain markdown files
- Users of agents that support the Agent Skills standard
Choose Understand Anything if you need…
- Developers joining a new team who need to learn an unfamiliar codebase
- People who want a visual map of how files and modules depend on each other
- Anyone who wants to check what their current changes might affect before committing
- Users of a Karpathy-pattern LLM wiki who want it shown as a linked graph
Side-by-side
| planning-with-files | Understand Anything | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Dev tool | Dev tool |
| Price | Free and open source | Free and open source |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 27.8k | 89.7k |
| Setup difficulty | Beginner | Beginner |
| How you get it | Install with a package manager | See the README |
| Main language | Shell | TypeScript |
| Last code update | 6 days ago | 11 days ago |
What each one is
planning-with-files
This is a skill for AI coding agents that stores a task plan, research notes, and progress log as markdown files in your project. Lifecycle hooks re-inject that planning context so the agent can pick up where it left off after /clear, context compaction, or a crash. The README says it works across 60+ agents via the Agent Skills standard, with native plugins for several hosts including Claude Code and Codex CLI.
Understand Anything
Understand Anything is a plugin for AI coding assistants such as Claude Code. It scans a project with a multi-agent pipeline and builds a knowledge graph of its files, functions, classes, and dependencies, then provides an interactive dashboard to browse it. It is meant to help someone new to a codebase see how the pieces fit together without reading every file.
Best for
planning-with-files
- Developers running long multi-step tasks in Claude Code or Codex CLI
- People who lose agent progress when the context window fills or is cleared
- Teams wanting a plan that lives in the project as plain markdown files
- Users of agents that support the Agent Skills standard
Understand Anything
- Developers joining a new team who need to learn an unfamiliar codebase
- People who want a visual map of how files and modules depend on each other
- Anyone who wants to check what their current changes might affect before committing
- Users of a Karpathy-pattern LLM wiki who want it shown as a linked graph
Strengths
planning-with-files
- Plain markdown files on disk that you can read, edit, and version-control or gitignore
- Works through the Agent Skills standard across many agents, with native plugins for several hosts
- MIT licensed with a published benchmark and install options via npm, the Claude Code marketplace, or npx
Understand Anything
- Covers multiple AI coding platforms, including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, and Gemini CLI
- Re-runs are incremental by default, re-analyzing only changed files
- Supports output in several languages via the --language option
Not ideal for
planning-with-files
- Short one-off questions where a plan file adds overhead
- People who want a hosted service rather than local files in their repo
- Users of hosts not listed in the README, since native support depends on the host and results may vary
Understand Anything
- Teams with strict token or cost budgets, since the initial run on a large project can use many tokens according to the README
- Projects needing a non-AI, fully deterministic analysis tool, because it relies on LLM agents for much of its work
- People not using one of the supported AI coding platforms, since it is built as an add-on for them
Trade-offs
planning-with-files
- Benchmark figures are from the project's own measurements and are reported with stated limits; independent verification is not shown in the README
- Commands and tools vary by host, so the experience differs between integrations
- Session catchup modes can read local agent session records, which the README says requires an explicit opt-in
Understand Anything
- The initial analysis of a large codebase can consume significant tokens
- Quality of summaries and relationships depends on the underlying LLM, which the README does not evaluate in detail
- The README is truncated, so full install steps for non-Claude platforms are not confirmed here
Getting started
planning-with-files
Install the skill globally via npx skills
npx skills add OthmanAdi/planning-with-files --skill planning-with-files -gUnderstand Anything
Add the plugin marketplace in Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add Egonex-AI/Understand-AnythingInstall the plugin
/plugin install understand-anythingFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between planning-with-files and Understand Anything?
planning-with-files: A file-based planning skill that keeps AI coding agents on track across resets and crashes. Understand Anything: Turns a codebase, wiki, or docs into an explorable graph you can search and ask questions about. planning-with-files suits developers running long multi-step tasks in claude code or codex cli, while Understand Anything suits developers joining a new team who need to learn an unfamiliar codebase.
Are planning-with-files and Understand Anything free?
planning-with-files: Free and open source. Understand Anything: Free and open source.
Is planning-with-files or Understand Anything more popular?
Understand Anything has more GitHub stars (89.7k) than planning-with-files (27.8k). Popularity isn't the same as fit — check which one matches your use case above.
What are other alternatives to planning-with-files and Understand Anything?
Other options people compare them with include OpenHands, wshobson/agents, 9Router, Ruflo, oh-my-claudecode.
Keep comparing
Built from our catalogue entries for both products: open-source details come from each project's README (AI-assisted, refreshed weekly) and GitHub data; AI-tool details are editorial. Spotted something wrong? Let us know from either product's page.