What does this plugin do?

It makes the agent explain its coding choices and design decisions while it works, adding educational insights about implementation choices and codebase patterns.

Why does it mention a deprecated output style?

It mimics the deprecated Explanatory output style, restoring that behavior as a plugin.

explanatory-output-style

PackAI & models

This explanatory output style plugin makes an AI agent explain its coding choices and design decisions while it works. It adds educational insights about implementation choices and codebase patterns, reviving the behavior of the deprecated Explanatory output style. It suits people who want to learn from the agent's reasoning rather than receive code alone.

Unavailable. Delivery for this kind is on the roadmap — not serving yet.

Have an agent setup that supports plugins.

What your AI can do with it

Explains implementation choices as the agent writes code
Surfaces design decisions behind changes
Adds educational insights about codebase patterns
Reproduces the deprecated Explanatory output style behavior

Getting started

Have an agent setup that supports plugins.
Add the explanatory-output-style plugin to your configuration.
Enable the plugin so the agent adopts the explanatory style.
Start a coding task and read the explanations the agent provides alongside its work.

Signals

GitHub stars: 148k
Forks: 25k
Last commit: Sep 2026

Questions

What does this plugin do?: It makes the agent explain its coding choices and design decisions while it works, adding educational insights about implementation choices and codebase patterns.
Why does it mention a deprecated output style?: It mimics the deprecated Explanatory output style, restoring that behavior as a plugin.

Advanced

Item type: plugin
Key: anthropics-claude-code-explanatory-output-style
Source: github.com/anthropics/claude-code

github.com/anthropics/claude-code