Auto-Approve Skill

Status: not installed

<!-- Read the Status line above to determine behavior (do not output it):

• "installed": Display the Actions list below as a menu for the user to choose from. Do NOT execute any actions—just show the list and wait for the user to pick one.
• "not installed": Run the Installation steps at the bottom of this file.

-->

Actions

Show this menu and wait for the user to choose:

• Status - Show config, cache stats, recent decisions
• View config - Display current configuration (global + project)
• Add pattern - Add to Always Allow, Always Ask, Safe Tools, or Custom Rules
• View activity - Show recent decisions from audit log
• Suggest patterns - Find frequently approved patterns to add
• Clear cache - Remove cached decisions
• Update - Check for and apply hook updates
• Uninstall - Remove the hook

Reference

Config Management

View config: Read and display merged config from:

• Global: ~/.claude/auto-approve/config.md
• Project: .claude/auto-approve.md (if exists)

Add to Always Allow:

• Default to project level (.claude/auto-approve.md)
• Create file if needed
• Add pattern to ## Always Allow section

Add to Always Ask:

• Same as above, add to ## Always Ask section

Add Safe Tool:

• Add to ## Safe Tools section

Add Custom Rule:

• Add to ## Custom Rules section

Audit & Maintenance

View recent activity: Read ~/.claude/auto-approve/audit.log, show recent decisions.

Suggest patterns: Parse audit.log for frequently manually-approved patterns, suggest adding to config.

Clear cache:

rm -rf ~/.claude/auto-approve/cache/*

Show cache stats:

ls ~/.claude/auto-approve/cache/ | wc -l

Update Hook

Check for newer version:

1. Compare installed version: grep "^VERSION=" ~/.claude/auto-approve/auto-approve.sh
2. Compare to skill directory version: grep "^VERSION=" "$SKILL_DIR/auto-approve.sh"
3. If skill directory is newer, copy and replace

Uninstall

1. Confirm with user
2. Remove hook from ~/.claude/settings.json
3. Optionally delete ~/.claude/auto-approve/ directory
4. Change the Status line to Status: not installed

Config File Locations

Default to project level when adding patterns, unless:

• User says "global" or "for all projects"
• No .claude/ directory in project

FAQ

Q: Why did I have to approve that command? A: Check audit.log for the decision reason. The command either:

• Wasn't in Safe Tools
• Didn't match any Always Allow pattern
• Haiku wasn't confident it was safe

Q: What's the difference between Safe Tools and Always Allow? A: Safe Tools matches exact tool names (Read, Glob, etc.). Always Allow matches patterns in the full toolname:toolinput string.

Q: How do I always approve npm commands? A: Add npm to Always Allow section (matches any command containing "npm").

Q: How do I make Haiku more permissive for this project? A: Add Custom Rules like "Always approve writes to src/ and test/"

Installation (only when Status is "not installed")

Run these steps only if the Status line above says "not installed":

1. Create directories:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/auto-approve/cache

1. Copy files from skill directory:

cp "$SKILL_DIR/auto-approve.sh" ~/.claude/auto-approve/auto-approve.sh
chmod +x ~/.claude/auto-approve/auto-approve.sh
cp "$SKILL_DIR/config.md" ~/.claude/auto-approve/config.md

1. Add hook to ~/.claude/settings.json:

Read existing settings and merge this hook config. Use the expanded absolute path (not ~):

{
  "hooks": {
    "PermissionRequest": [
      {
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "/home/username/.claude/auto-approve/auto-approve.sh",
            "timeout": 35000
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Replace /home/username with the actual home directory path (use $HOME to determine it).

1. Update this skill file: Change the Status line to Status: installed so future invocations skip installation.

1. Confirm installation complete.