> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hazel.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Plan design > Set the shape every plan starts from, and read the design your firm already has. You want every plan your firm delivers to carry your firm's shape, not a default. Plan design sets that shape once, and Hazel fills it with each household's analysis. Nothing here touches a plan you have already delivered. A design shapes the plans Hazel builds from now on, and an existing plan stays until someone rebuilds it. Find it in **Settings → Planning**, on the **Base template** every plan the firm builds starts from, and on each persona under **Client persona**. Planning settings belong to the firm owner, so ask whoever owns your firm's Hazel account if you cannot see the section. ## Reading the blueprint The card headed **Plan layout** draws your whole design at once. | What you see | What it is | | ---------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Bands** | Top-level sections, which become the plan's main navigation. A band without tabs shows its module count. | | **Indented sub-bands** | Child sections, which become tabs inside the parent, whose row says "Shown as tabs". | | **Chips** | Blocks. One chip is one piece of the plan: writing, a chart, a table, key figures, levers. | | **Markers** | When each piece appears, under the legend headed **When it appears**: a solid check for **Always**, in every plan; a dashed circle for **When it applies**, only where it fits the household. | A chip carrying a module shows the module's name, sometimes with a badge: "2 levers" for the what-if controls that piece offers, or one starting with "Calc" for the calculation behind its figures. A section holding no pieces reads "Hazel composes this section freely". Under the drawing, Hazel counts your sections, the planning modules in play, and the pieces set to Always. **See what's left out** opens the module library on the rest. ### Strictness, and whose design this is **Strictness**, in the card's header, sets how closely Hazel follows the blueprint: **Exact**, **Guided** or **Flexible**, and new firms start on **Flexible**. The same panel holds one switch, **Allow additions** ("Hazel may add sections or blocks you didn't design"), which Exact locks off. [Strictness](/guides/financial-planning/settings/personas/strictness) covers what each mode does and how it plays against each piece's own setting. Before anyone changes it, the base template wears a **Hazel default** badge. A persona nobody has changed wears **Follows base**, faded, tracking the base template live. Your first edit gives that persona a copy of its own, and **Re-sync from base** hands it back whenever you want. Every chip can be moved, removed or reworded, including the ones Hazel put there. A design keeps at least one section, and removing a section or tab takes everything inside it. ## The two ways to change it A panel opens with three settings for that chip: **When it appears**, **Instructions to Hazel**, and **Leave out when**, the one condition it may be dropped. Press **Done** when finished. Use it to shape how a piece is written, without leaving the settings page. Opens the full editor, for changing what is there: add and remove modules, reorder blocks, restructure sections and tabs, pin exact headings, and preview the shape filled in with a made-up household. Planning settings have no Save button. What you type saves a moment after you click away, and a quiet **Saved** appears at the top of the page. The full editor is the exception: changes there wait for its own save button. ## Design, instructions and assumptions * **Plan design**: what a plan contains, and where. Binds as tightly as your strictness setting. * **Instructions**: how it is written, and what to emphasize. Guidance Hazel weighs. * **Assumptions**: the numbers behind every figure. Used as given, and a persona can override a firm value while one plan can override both. Making a topic appear in every plan takes two settings: the piece on **Always**, and strictness on **Guided** or **Exact**. A module you add starts on **When it applies** unless you use the add option that always includes it. ## Where the default shape comes from Out of the box a plan navigates **Summary** (its own heading reads "Executive summary"), **Today**, **Goals**, **Getting there** and **Decisions**. Getting there opens on Your priorities, then three tabs your modules put there: Cash flow, Retirement and Insurance. Investments and Estate plan wait in the module library. That shape comes from eight modules: Net worth & balance sheet, Emergency fund, Goal funding, Insurance, Cash flow, Debt paydown, Retirement, and Monte Carlo success. ## Where to go next * [Using the editor](/guides/financial-planning/plan-design/using-the-editor): end to end. * [Sections and tabs](/guides/financial-planning/plan-design/sections-and-tabs): building the spine. * [Modules](/guides/financial-planning/plan-design/modules): adding and removing topics. * [Block settings](/guides/financial-planning/plan-design/block-settings): the per-block controls. * [Module reference](/guides/financial-planning/plan-design/module-reference): what every module needs. * [Glossary](/guides/financial-planning/glossary): blocks, levers, personas and the rest.