Claude Code setup
The rules, guardrails and skills Nix Inc works under.
What it is
This is the Claude Code setup Nix Inc works under, and the kind of setup Nix Inc offers to clients. A global instruction file sets the method: plan before editing, make one focused change per task, check the result in the real product, then review it against a written standard. Written permission tiers say what the agent may do alone, what it must ask about first and what only a person does.
By the numbers
What it means for your team
This is what a client gets set up: repo files the agent reads first, hard limits on destructive commands and on access to secrets, and skills the team can reuse. The rules are written down, so anyone on the team can read what the agent may and may not do.
Status
The setup is configured for Nix Inc's own work, and parts of it need rewriting before it can be handed to a client. The ask-first and human-owned tiers are enforced by written instructions, not by the tool. The customer-notes skill has no real customer data to run on yet.
Method
Four steps: Brief, Ticket, Eyes and Review. The agent plans first, makes one change a person can review, drives the real product after building, then reviews the change against the repo's written standard.
Permission tiers
Three written tiers: safe, ask first and human-owned. The instructions keep production deploys, billing and customer-data decisions with a person; the deny list covers only the destructive commands below.
Deny list
Rules in Claude Code's settings block recursive force deletes, force pushes, git clean, hard resets, reads of .env files and the payment write and refund tools.
Guard hook
A script that runs before every tool call covers cases the deny list cannot express. It blocks commands that set an API key and short interpreter commands that touch .env files.
Skills
One skill sets up a repo with its instruction file, roadmap, review standard and folders for customer notes, demos and routines. One collects customers' exact wording and refuses to invent quotes. One reviews a landing page at desktop and phone widths and ends with one recommended fix.