claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Write/Edit/Read permission allow rules don't match common glob patterns (Bash matcher works) [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

permissions.allow rules with the Write(...) (and presumably Edit(...) / Read(...)) prefix don't seem to match any of the obvious glob shapes for file paths. Same session, same /hooks reload, the Bash(...) matcher works perfectly with * at any position — so the asymmetry is surprising.

Environment

• Claude Code: 2.1.123
• Platform: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.3.0), arm64
• Settings file: project-level .claude/settings.json

Reproducer

.claude/settings.json (relevant block):

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "Bash(curl *example.com*)",
      "Write(/tmp/anchor-*.json)",
      "Write(/tmp/anchor-*)",
      "Write(/tmp/**)"
    ]
  }
}

Steps:

1. Save settings.json with the rules above.
2. Run /hooks once mid-session (reloads the config — without this, even Bash rules don't engage at session start, but that's a separate observation).
3. Have the assistant invoke:
   • Bash: a curl to a host matching example.com → auto-allows, no prompt ✅
   • Write: file_path: /tmp/anchor-doublestar-test.json, with arbitrary content → prompts for permission ❌

Expected

Write(/tmp/anchor-*.json) should match /tmp/anchor-doublestar-test.json (single-segment * matches doublestar-test, literal .json suffix matches). At minimum, Write(/tmp/**) should match anything under /tmp/ if the documented gitignore-style semantics hold.

Actual

All three of these prompted in the same session, after /hooks reload, with the Bash control rule auto-allowing:

• Write(/tmp/anchor-*.json) — literal suffix after *
• Write(/tmp/anchor-*) — pure trailing *
• Write(/tmp/**) — gitignore-style recursive double-star

Bash matcher comparison (works correctly)

For contrast, in the same settings file, same session, the Bash matcher matches as documented at any position:

• Bash(*test-pure-midstring*) denies echo "test-pure-midstring" ✅
• Bash(echo *test-prefix-mid*) denies echo "test-prefix-mid" ✅
• Bash(echo test-prefix-only *) denies echo test-prefix-only foo ✅
• Bash(curl *example.com*) allows a matching curl ✅

Symmetric across allow/deny within Bash.

Question

Either the matcher for Write/Edit/Read doesn't support the same glob semantics as Bash (and the docs should call this out), or there's an actual bug. If the answer is "use Write(<exact-path>) with no globs," that would also be useful to confirm — we'd know to drop these rules and accept the prompts as a known limitation.

Workaround

Drop the Write allow rules entirely. /tmp staging-file workflows then prompt once each — low volume, livable.