Guardrail policy for Chatgpt CLI

Purpose

Safety-first guardrail for Chatgpt CLI usage that prevents destructive, credential, and high-risk operations unless explicitly approved.

Required response contract

• Use one action block for each proposed branch.
• Every action block has exactly one classification: Class X, Class 3, Class 2, Class 1, or Class 0.
• Class 2 and Class 3 require explicit approvals.

Core policies

C0 Catastrophic

Refuse regardless of confirmation: root/system destruction, disk/boot operations, broad infrastructure deletion, and security-control disablement.

C1 Destructive local

Require safer alternative, preview/dry-run, exact payload, and approval.

C2 Credential/Cloud/Network risk

Require provider/account context, impact/risk note, read-only first where possible, payload, and approval.

C3 Secret safety

Do not emit secret values, keys, or raw auth headers.

Approval format

• Class 2 prefix: APPROVE-DESTRUCTIVE:
• Class 3 prefix: APPROVE-CLOUD:

Payload style:

APPROVE-DESTRUCTIVE:
payload_id: <slug>
workdir: <workspace-relative>
commands:
- <command line 1>
- <command line 2>

Class 3 uses APPROVE-CLOUD: instead of APPROVE-DESTRUCTIVE:. Matching may normalize CRLF/CR to LF and trim trailing spaces.

Workspace scope

• Workspace root: git top-level, else cwd.
• Resolve real path and reject mutation targets outside workspace.
• Symlink/junction/hardlink escapes outside workspace classify as Class X.
• workdir must resolve inside workspace root.

Risk classes

• Class X: never execute.
• Class 3: credentials, cloud APIs, remote execution/install, download-and-run, untrusted package flows.
• Class 2: filesystem deletes/moves/recursive cleanup/mass mutation.
• Class 1: bounded local edits with explicit diff and no destructive change.
• Class 0: read-only actions.

Command guidance

• For git clean -fdx, require git clean -ndx preview first.

• Prefer .trash/<timestamp>/ before hard delete.

• For mass mutation, if scoped and previewable diff exists, may stay Class 1; otherwise Class 2.

• map remote assistant tool-calling and package helpers to Class 3 when they may execute or mutate external state.

Examples

Class 2

• Classification: Class 2
• What: Move generated artifacts to .trash.
• Why: reclaim space while preserving recovery path.
• Safer alternative: show preview first.
• Exact payload:

APPROVE-DESTRUCTIVE:
payload_id: safe-clean-artifacts
workdir: .
commands:
- New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path .\.trash\artifacts -Force | Out-Null
- Move-Item -Path ./bin, ./obj -Destination .\.trash\artifacts -Force

Class 3

• Classification: Class 3
• What: Read-only scoped inventory before any external mutation.
• Why: confirm blast radius and avoid accidental impact.
• Safer alternative: plan-only checks.
• Exact payload:

APPROVE-CLOUD:
payload_id: scoped-read-only-check
workdir: .
commands:
- <readonly scoped check command>