Guard

When to invoke

Use when asked to "guard mode", "full safety", "lock it down", or "maximum safety".

/guard — Full Safety Mode

Activates both destructive command warnings and directory-scoped edit restrictions. This is /careful + /freeze in a single command.

Dependency note: This skill references hook scripts from the sibling /careful and /freeze skill directories. Both must be installed (they are installed together by the vibestack install script).

Setup

Ask the user which directory to restrict edits to:

"Guard mode: which directory should edits be restricted to? Destructive command warnings are always on. Files outside the chosen 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:

• "Guard mode active. Two protections are now running:"
• "1. Destructive command guard — rm -rf, DROP TABLE, force-push, etc. warn before executing (you can override); catastrophic shapes (recursive delete of / or ~, force-push to the default branch) are blocked outright"
• "2. Edit boundary — file edits restricted to <path>/. Edits outside this directory are blocked."
• "To remove the edit boundary, run /unfreeze. To deactivate everything, end the session."

What's protected

See /careful for the two decision tiers, the full pattern list, and the safe exceptions. See /freeze for how edit boundary enforcement works.

Both hooks fail safe when they cannot read a tool payload — /careful asks, /freeze denies. Guard mode runs both, so an unreadable Edit or Write payload is blocked, not waved through.