Skip to content

Permission prompts don't say what is being approved #50234

Open

Description

@freimer

When opencode asks me to approve access to a directory outside the working
directory, the prompt tells me the directory and nothing else. I'm asked to
grant access, but I can't tell what is about to be done to that directory or
the files in it, or why. So I either approve blind or reject something that
was probably fine.

Here's what it looks like:

Image

All it tells me is Access external directory ~/.config/opencode and the
pattern it would allow. Whatever tool call triggered this is invisible.

At a minimum, the prompt should show the exact tool call that requires the
approval — the command for a shell tool, the path and target for a file
operation, and so on. Ideally it would also show what the agent is trying to
do and why, since that context exists in the conversation right before the
prompt appears.

I hit this most with shell commands that touch paths outside the working
directory. In that case the command is already known to the permission
system, it just isn't shown to me. I'd expect to see something like:

$ rg -n "old-path" /srv/data

(or the file path for a read/write).

There's no way for me to get this from the prompt itself, and rejecting
blind on every outside-directory request isn't workable.

Happy to test a fix.

Activity

  1. opencodejr commented on Oct 28, 2026

    @opencodejr
    Contributor

    Thanks for the clear write-up and the screenshot, @freimer!

    You're asking for the external-directory permission prompt to show the tool call that triggered it: the shell command (for example $ rg -n "old-path" /srv/data), or the file path for a read or write. Ideally it would also show what the agent is trying to do. Right now the prompt shows only the directory and the pattern that would be allowed. That matches how the prompt is currently built, so I've filed this as a feature request and not a bug. The tool call is already available where the prompt is drawn, it just isn't shown for external-directory requests. Maintainers will consider it.

    Related issues about what permission prompts show:

    It would also help if you could reply with your opencode --version.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions