Claude Permissions Allow, Deny

 

Claude AI is powerful and it needs to be contained in many cases.  The default mode for Claude code is to ask permissions before it asks.

But if that is all it does that presents two problems.  One you have to click enter/yet again and again and again.  And two if you do that eventually you are going to click a yes when you don’t mean to.

 

 

/permissions command

In Claude you can run the /permissions command to view the current permissions settings.

> claude

Start up Claude

> /permissions

Then run /permissions

 

 

You can use this menu bar to see what is currently allowed/denied etc.

During a session you can grant permission while the sessions is running.
For example if I run

> Tell me how many files are in my ~/.ssh folder

 

I will get this prompt.  If I choose one I will give it permissions to read from this directory this one time
But if I choose 2 then Claude will be allowed to read from this folder every time while I am in this session

Let me choose 2

Now if I run /permissions

> /permissions

I can see its now allowed.

And if I query it again

> Tell me how many files are in my ~/.ssh folder

 

There is no interactive check because we allowed it to run this command.

 

 

Permission Modes

You can also set permission modes see https://code.claude.com/docs/en/permissions [1]

You have default, acceptEdits, plan, auto, dontAsk, and bypassPermissions.

 

default
    This is the standard behavior it prompts on first use of each tool

acceptEdits

    Automatically accepts file edits and common system command
    (mkdir, touch, mv, cp, etc) for paths in the working directory

plan

    Claude reads file and runs read-only shell commands to explore but
    does not edit your source files 

auto
    Auto-approves tool calls with background safety checks (still
    experimental) 

dontAsk
     Auto-denies tools unless pre-approved via /permissions or
     permission.alllow rules

byPassPermissions
      Skips all permission prompts  (nuclear option very scary)

 

 

While you are starting out keep it as default.

There is no way to check which mode you are in.  And honestly it does not make sense to have one.  Since whatever mode you are in will be enhannaced/changed with custom settings you can set in your ~/.claude/settings.json file which I will go over soon.

Now…
how can we change modes?

The first easy way is while running Claude press Shift + Tab to cycle through the modes.

 

Looks like I only have access to Default, Accept Edits and Plan mode.

You can start Claude in another mode.

> claude --permission-mode plan

Or

> claude --permission-mode bypassPermissions

 

Be very careful with this one, in fact don’t run it.   Very very few reasons to let it do whatever it wants.

 

 

Specific settings

For now I am going to use the default and adjust specific settings in the ~/.claude/settings.json file.

Open it up

> vi ~/.claude/settings.json

And we are going to add some settings

"permissions": {     "allow": [       "Bash(npm run *)",       "Bash(git status)",       "Bash(git diff *)",       "Bash(git commit *)",       "Bash(pytest *)",       "Bash(npx *)",       "Read(/src/**)",       "Edit(/src/**)"     ],      "ask": [       "Bash(git push *)",       "Bash(git push --force *)",       "Bash(curl *)",       "WebFetch(domain:*)"     ],      "deny": [       "Read(~/.ssh/**)",       "Edit(~/.ssh/**)",       "Bash(rm -rf *)",       "Bash(git push origin --delete *)",       "Edit(//etc/**)",       "Edit(//Users/*/.ssh/**)",       "WebFetch(domain:evil.com)"   }

 

Here you can see that we have  a "permissions" section that contains "allow",  "ask", and "deny"

Anything in allow will be “Auto approved” no need to ask
Anything in ask will always prompt for confirmation
Anything in Deny will be completely blocked

In Claude the Deny rule wins

Then as far as what you can do you have

Read
   Allows, or denies reading a file.
Edit
   Allows, or denies creating, modifying, or deleting files.
Bash
   Allows, or denies Claude from running terminal/shell commands
WebFetch
   Allows, or denies Claude from making network request to external 
   Domains (HTTP/HTTPS)

 

References

 

[1]       Settings and Permissions

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/permissions
Accessed 05/2026