Audit Your Claude Code Permissions: A Practical Guide to Scoping Tool Access

A developer on r/ClaudeAI recently audited their Claude Code permissions and discovered they had given the AI blanket tool access without thinking about scope. The result: Claude could theoretically edit .env files, modify production configs, and write to directories used for other projects. No incident occurred, but the author argues, “nothing bad happened yet” is not a valid reason to leave such a setup in place.

Key Findings

• Global vs. per-project tool access: Many setups allow tools globally when they should be restricted to specific projects or directories.
• CLAUDE.md secrets: Check if any CLAUDE.md files in your system contain secrets or sensitive paths that Claude could read or write.
• Ambiguous instructions: The real risk is less about malicious AI behavior and more about broad interpretation. For example, “refactor this module” could inadvertently touch adjacent modules if permissions aren’t scoped.

Audit Process

1. List all tools allowed globally vs. per-project in your Claude Code configuration.
2. Review all CLAUDE.md files across your system for hardcoded secrets, API keys, or sensitive directory paths.
3. Define which files and directories should be off-limits (e.g., .env, production configs, other project directories).
4. Update permissions to make these boundaries explicit rather than relying on the model to guess correctly.

Scoping permissions turns implicit trust into explicit boundaries. This is especially important for projects with mixed production and development environments. The full Reddit thread includes community discussion on specific permission models and tool configurations.