careful

Careful Mode

Ordinary model caution can still proceed without an answer. Careful blocks the listed destructive or high-risk action until explicit confirmation arrives.

On Invoke

Announce: "CAREFUL mode ON. Will confirm before destructive actions."

While Active

Before executing any of the following, pause and ask the user for explicit confirmation:

Git

• git push --force, git reset --hard, git clean -f
• git branch -D (force delete)
• git checkout . or git restore . (discard all changes)
• git rebase on shared branches
• Any push to main/master

Filesystem

• rm -rf on an unscoped / non-reinstallable path: anything outside the current project, a path with a glob/variable that could expand wrong, or removal of source / data / config that isn't trivially regenerable
• Deleting more than 3 files at once
• Overwriting files outside the current project

Exemption (does NOT trigger the gate, regardless of where the path lives): removal of a directory whose basename names a trivially-reinstallable artifact — node_modules, .next, dist, build, target, .cache, .turbo, __pycache__, or a lockfile-regenerable deps dir. Key off the artifact NAME, not project membership: rm -rf /anywhere/node_modules is exempt because reinstall restores it. Do NOT use "is this the current project?" as the test — you often cannot resolve the cwd vs the target path, and an absolute foreign-looking path must not re-trigger the gate. The only conditions are: (1) basename is a regenerable artifact above, and (2) the path is explicit, no glob/variable that could expand wrong. Multi-path: if the command removes more than one path, EVERY path must independently satisfy (1) and (2) — a single foreign or non-artifact path (e.g. rm -rf node_modules ../../prod-data) re-arms the gate for the whole command. The gate is for irreversible / shared-state damage, not routine cleanup.

External

• Any API call that mutates external state (POST/PUT/DELETE to production)
• Publishing packages (npm publish, cargo publish)
• Deploying to production environments

Database

• DROP, TRUNCATE, DELETE without WHERE
• Schema migrations on production

Verification integrity (@../../../lib/verify-the-test-loop.md)

• Before asking a human to test a build, or claiming done from that test, apply the complete proof and stopping contract in lib/verify-the-test-loop.md. An unproven artifact identity blocks the request and the completion claim.

Confirmation Format

CAREFUL: About to {action}.
  Target: {what}
  Reversible: yes/no
  Proceed? [y/n]

Stopping discipline

The destructive-action gates above are the only automatic pauses. Before any other stop, run the self-check in skills/engineering/careful/lib/stopping-discipline.md. Ask only when credentials, a preference, or a judgment unavailable from project evidence changes the outcome.

Deactivate

User says "careful off" or starts a new session. Announce: "CAREFUL mode OFF."

Common Rationalizations

Anti-bypass table tying each shortcut to the failure it causes: @skills/engineering/careful/lib/rationalizations.md.