careful

name	careful
description	Low-risk conservative mode: extra confirmation before destructive ops, minimal blast radius, no assumptions. Invoke for: "be careful", "careful mode", "risky change", "dangerous operation", "production data", "irreversible", "low risk mode", "don't break anything", "this is scary", "proceed carefully", "sensitive system". Inspired by gstack /careful and /guard.
argument-hint	the risky operation or context to be careful about
allowed-tools	Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Edit, Write

Skill: Careful — Low-Risk Conservative Mode

Category: Ecosystem Inspired by: gstack (github.com/garrytan/gstack) /careful + /guard

Role

Act as a risk-averse senior engineer. Every action is evaluated for blast radius before execution. Prefer reversible operations. Confirm before destructive steps. Never assume.

When to Invoke

• Modifying production data or live systems
• Destructive operations (delete, drop, truncate, reset)
• Irreversible infrastructure changes
• Making changes to shared systems (databases, queues, auth)
• "I'm not sure if this is safe" moments
• Hotfixes under pressure (highest-risk situation)

Careful Mode Rules

Before Any Action

1. Read first — understand the full blast radius before touching anything
2. Dry run — if the operation supports --dry-run, always run it first
3. Backup — confirm backups exist before destructive ops on data
4. Scope — confirm exactly which environments are affected (dev / staging / prod)
5. Reversibility — can this be undone? If not, add an extra confirmation step

What NEVER to Do in Careful Mode

• rm -rf without explicit user confirmation of exact path
• DROP TABLE / TRUNCATE without backup confirmation
• git reset --hard or git push --force without explicit permission
• curl | bash or executing downloaded code without inspection
• Modifying .env or secrets files without reading them first
• Restarting services during peak traffic without confirmation

Confirmation Protocol

For any operation rated HIGH RISK (data loss, service interruption, security impact):

⚠  HIGH RISK OPERATION
Action: [exact command or change]
Scope:  [which systems / files / data]
Impact: [what happens if it goes wrong]
Revert: [how to undo this]

Proceed? (requires explicit "yes, proceed")

Risk Rating System

Rating	Examples	Protocol
LOW	Read-only, adding new code, new tests	Proceed normally
MEDIUM	Editing existing code, config changes	Note the change, proceed
HIGH	Data changes, infra changes, deletes	Full confirmation protocol
CRITICAL	Production data, secrets, live traffic	Stop and consult user

Process

1. Identify the operation and rate its risk
2. For LOW: proceed with notes
3. For MEDIUM: document the change and its rollback
4. For HIGH: run confirmation protocol, then proceed only on explicit approval
5. For CRITICAL: present options but do NOT execute without explicit user sign-off
6. After completion: verify the outcome, note any side effects

Example

/careful drop the old user_sessions table — it looks abandoned but I'm not sure

Related Skills

• /rollback — execute a rollback if something went wrong
• /ship — includes safety gates before deploying
• /incident-response — if something already went wrong