The agent's permission rules

The coding agent's permission rules decide, for each action, whether it runs, is refused, or goes to a person or a model first. They live in the agent's settings, which a person sets and approves.

Finding it

• Claude Code: permissions in .claude/settings.json (shared with the project), .claude/settings.local.json and ~/.claude/settings.json, with an organisation's managed settings above them.
• Other coding agents: an approval policy and a sandbox mode in their config (~/.codex/config.toml for Codex).
• Deploys: the code host's deployment environments, with their required reviewers.

Using it

• Rules match a tool and a pattern: Bash(npm run test:*) allowed, Bash(git push:*) asked, Read(./.env) denied.
• Deny wins over ask, and ask over allow.
• Actions that cannot be undone (a push to the main branch, a delete, a deploy) are asked about by default.
• Deny rules for what must never run, whoever decides the rest; changes to the rules are reviewed like code.

Examples: Claude Code's allow, ask and deny rules and its auto mode; the approval policies of other coding agents; deployment environments with required reviewers.