A coding agent asks before it does something it was not told it could do. If you are away from the desk, that question waits. Answering from your phone fixes the wait, but it adds a new risk: a small screen, a quick tap, and a command you did not really read.

Read the whole command

A summary is not enough. “Claude wants to run a command” tells you nothing. The card should show the exact command or edit, and let you copy it. Brocoded shows the full text, and an open approval cannot be dismissed, only answered.

Use a label as a first look

Brocoded adds a short plain-words label to each approval, such as “Runs your tests”, “Deletes files” or “Pushes your commits”, with one of three levels: Low risk, Check this, or Careful.

  • Low risk: reads or checks things, like listing files or running tests.
  • Check this: changes something, like editing a file, installing packages or committing.
  • Careful: hard to undo or sensitive, like deleting files, a force push, sudo, piping a download into a shell, or touching a secrets file.

The labels come from a fixed table of rules, not from an AI guess. The same command always gets the same label, so you can learn what to expect. They are a hint. They do not replace reading the command.

Turn repeats into rules

If you approve “npm test” twenty times a day, you are training yourself to tap without looking, which is the habit that gets people in trouble. Make it a rule instead. On the card, tap Always allow, and the command is allowed from then on. Tap Never allow on one you want refused every time.

A few design choices keep rules from becoming a loophole:

  • Rules are kept on your computer, so they also work while your phone is away.
  • A rule never approves a Careful action. You still get the card.
  • Deny beats allow, so a Never allow rule wins if both match.
  • A command that chains others with ; && | or redirects is not approved by a rule.
  • Activity shows what a rule decided, marked “Allowed by your rule”, so nothing happens silently.

Start narrow

Allow the exact command you keep approving, not a whole tool. “npm test” is a good rule. “Any shell command” is not, and Brocoded does not offer it. Look at Settings, under Approval rules, now and then, and remove what you no longer need.

Keep the habit of looking

Rules reduce the number of questions. They do not remove the need to read the ones that are left. If a card says Careful, slow down, read it, and if you are unsure, deny it. The agent can ask again, and it will still be waiting.

Brocoded is independent and is not made by or affiliated with Anthropic or OpenAI. It adds approvals on your phone for the Claude Code or Codex you already run on your own computer.