Freeze

When to invoke

Use when debugging to prevent accidentally "fixing" unrelated code, or when you want to scope changes to one module. Use when asked to "freeze", "restrict edits", "only edit this folder", or "lock down edits".

/freeze — Restrict Edits to a Directory

Lock file edits to a specific directory. Any Edit or Write operation targeting a file outside the allowed path will be blocked (not just warned).

Setup

Ask the user which directory to restrict edits to:

"Which directory should I restrict edits to? Files outside this path will be blocked from editing."

Once the user provides a path:

FREEZE_DIR=$(cd "<user-provided-path>" 2>/dev/null && pwd)
FREEZE_DIR="${FREEZE_DIR%/}/"
STATE_DIR="${VIBESTACK_HOME:-$HOME/.vibestack}"
mkdir -p "$STATE_DIR"
echo "$FREEZE_DIR" > "$STATE_DIR/freeze-dir.txt"
echo "Freeze boundary set: $FREEZE_DIR"

Tell the user: "Edits are now restricted to <path>/. Any Edit or Write outside this directory will be blocked. To change the boundary, run /freeze again. To remove it, run /unfreeze."

How it works

The hook parses file_path out of each Edit/Write payload, resolves the path fully — including a final component that is itself a symlink — and checks whether it starts with the frozen directory. If not, it returns a hookSpecificOutput envelope carrying permissionDecision: "deny". The nesting matters: Claude Code ignores a top-level permissionDecision, so a deny emitted at the top level lets the edit through.

Freeze is the deny tier, so it fails closed: a payload it cannot parse is blocked, not allowed. Its ask-tier sibling /careful makes the opposite call on the same input. Both share one extractor (careful/bin/hook-extract.sh).

The freeze boundary persists for the session via ~/.vibestack/freeze-dir.txt.

Notes

• The trailing / prevents /src from matching /src-old
• Applies to Edit and Write tools only — Read, Bash, Glob, Grep are unaffected
• Bash commands like sed -i can still modify files outside the boundary
• A symlink inside the boundary pointing outside it is resolved and blocked
• A path with spaces in it works — only leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed from the saved boundary, and a leading ~ is expanded
• To deactivate: run /unfreeze or end the conversation