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Lock the design/ folder outside a design session #2

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arne merged 12 commits from design-guardrail into main 2026-04-05 07:40:43 +02:00
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arne commented 2026-04-05 07:39:48 +02:00
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As orbit grew and design/ became the canonical styleguide the web layer
would be ported from, accidental AI edits to those files during unrelated
feature work became a real risk. One thoughtless rewrite of
design/style.css during a Go refactor would silently desync the
styleguide from the web layer.

This PR installs a PreToolUse hook (.claude/hooks/design-session-guard.sh)
that enforces a two-mode rule: design work and feature work are strictly
separated. In normal mode, Edit, Write, MultiEdit, and Bash
operations under design/ are blocked. To work on the styleguide, the
user creates a session marker file (.claude/design-session-active) from
a separate terminal outside Claude Code. While the marker is present,
design/ is unlocked — and symmetrically, everything else is locked so
feature work can't leak in during a design session.

The hook is deliberately AI-unreachable in every direction: Claude cannot
create, delete, read, or otherwise manipulate the marker file via any
tool, because the whole point of a mode flip is that the human makes it.

Detection

For Edit/Write/MultiEdit, the hook compares the resolved absolute
path against the repo root and classifies writes as in-design or
out-of-design. For Bash, it uses a path-token regex —
(^|[^[:alnum:]_])design/ — that matches design/, ./design/,
/design/ and quoted variants, but deliberately does not match
designs/ (the Go package) or redesign/.

Reads are always allowed

The hook never blocks reading from design/. Claude can reference the
styleguide for context at any time, from any mode.

As orbit grew and `design/` became the canonical styleguide the web layer would be ported from, accidental AI edits to those files during unrelated feature work became a real risk. One thoughtless rewrite of `design/style.css` during a Go refactor would silently desync the styleguide from the web layer. This PR installs a `PreToolUse` hook (`.claude/hooks/design-session-guard.sh`) that enforces a two-mode rule: design work and feature work are strictly separated. In normal mode, `Edit`, `Write`, `MultiEdit`, and `Bash` operations under `design/` are blocked. To work on the styleguide, the user creates a session marker file (`.claude/design-session-active`) from a separate terminal outside Claude Code. While the marker is present, `design/` is unlocked — and symmetrically, everything else is locked so feature work can't leak in during a design session. The hook is deliberately AI-unreachable in every direction: Claude cannot create, delete, read, or otherwise manipulate the marker file via any tool, because the whole point of a mode flip is that the human makes it. ## Detection For `Edit`/`Write`/`MultiEdit`, the hook compares the resolved absolute path against the repo root and classifies writes as in-design or out-of-design. For `Bash`, it uses a path-token regex — `(^|[^[:alnum:]_])design/` — that matches `design/`, `./design/`, `/design/` and quoted variants, but deliberately does not match `designs/` (the Go package) or `redesign/`. ## Reads are always allowed The hook never blocks reading from `design/`. Claude can reference the styleguide for context at any time, from any mode.
arne added 12 commits 2026-04-05 07:39:48 +02:00 
Introduce a guardrail that locks design/ to AI agents during normal
feature work and unlocks it (exclusively) during explicit user-declared
design sessions. Mechanism: CLAUDE.md rule + /design-session slash
command + PreToolUse hook + gitignored marker file.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
User runs CC with permission prompts disabled, so any gate relying on
the permission system provides zero protection. Move state flip out of
CC entirely (user toggles marker from a separate terminal), drop the
slash command, and promote Bash-matcher hook from "known limitation" to
a required component in v1.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ten tasks, TDD throughout. Tasks 1-6 build the hook script against a
shell-based test harness that uses an isolated CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR so
the real marker file is never touched. Tasks 7-9 wire it into CC and
land the CLAUDE.md rule. Task 10 is manual verification inside a real
CC session.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
arne merged commit 771604aa62 into main 2026-04-05 07:40:43 +02:00
arne changed title from feat: guardrail for the design folder via PreToolUse hook to Lock the design/ folder outside a design session 2026-04-05 22:08:49 +02:00
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