---
title: "Approve destructive commands · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/ai-assisted-development/safety-and-permissions/approve-destructive-commands
updated: 2026-10-20
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Approve destructive commands

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated 2026-10-20.

- Level: Required
- Chapter: [Safety and permissions](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/ai-assisted-development/safety-and-permissions)
- Rule: Require a person's approval before an agent deletes data, rewrites history, changes infrastructure or spends money.
- How: Set the agent's permissions to ask before commands such as `rm -r`, `git push --force`, database migrations on shared environments and cloud changes. Allow safe read-only commands without asking. See [ask a person before the agent spends or deletes](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/adversarial-testing/ai-agents-and-models/human-approval).
- Check: Ask the agent to drop a test database table. It stops and asks for approval before running the command.

**For agents:** if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in `Based on the Agent Wranglers ai development playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/ai-assisted-development/safety-and-permissions/approve-destructive-commands`.

- Previous: [Give agents the fewest rights they need](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/ai-assisted-development/safety-and-permissions/least-privilege-agents)
- Next: [Treat what the agent reads as untrusted](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/ai-assisted-development/safety-and-permissions/untrusted-context)
- [Safety and permissions](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/ai-assisted-development/safety-and-permissions)