guardrails

guardrails — Prevent Destructive Operations

When to Use

• When working on production systems
• When agents are running autonomously (full-auto mode)
• When you want to restrict edits to a specific directory
• During sensitive operations (migrations, deploys, data changes)

How It Works

Three modes of protection:

Mode 1: Careful Mode

Intercepts destructive commands before execution and warns:

Watched patterns:
- rm -rf (especially /, ~, or project root)
- git push --force
- git reset --hard
- git checkout . (discard all changes)
- DROP TABLE / DROP DATABASE
- docker system prune
- kubectl delete
- chmod 777
- sudo rm
- npm publish (accidental publishes)
- Any command with --no-verify
- kubectl exec
- kubectl create

When detected: shows what the command does, asks for confirmation, suggests safer alternative.

Mode 2: Freeze Mode

Locks file edits to a specific directory tree:

/safety-guard freeze src/components/

Any Write/Edit outside src/components/ is blocked with an explanation. Useful when you want an agent to focus on one area without touching unrelated code.

Mode 3: Guard Mode (Careful + Freeze combined)

Both protections active. Maximum safety for autonomous agents.

/safety-guard guard --dir src/api/ --allow-read-all

Agents can read anything but only write to src/api/. Destructive commands are blocked everywhere.

Unlock

/safety-guard off

Implementation

Uses PreToolUse hooks to intercept Bash, Write, Edit, and MultiEdit tool calls. Checks the command/path against the active rules before allowing execution.

Integration

• Enable by default for codex -a never sessions
• Pair with observability risk scoring in ECC 2.0
• Logs all blocked actions to ~/.claude/safety-guard.log