Folder trust
A folder can carry its own Claude Code configuration: hooks, commands, environment variables, MCP servers. In a terminal, Claude Code asks before it works in a folder for the first time. When another app starts Claude Code, as Claudette does, it doesn’t ask (its permissions docs explain), and a cloned repository could run anything as its tab starts. So Claudette asks first, before Claude Code starts in a folder you haven’t trusted.
The question
The tab shows a card above the composer, Trust this folder?, listing what the folder’s configuration would run, each item with the file that says so:
| Row | What it is |
|---|---|
| Hook | A hook in the folder’s .claude/settings.json or .claude/settings.local.json, with its event and the command (or the address it sends to). |
| Command | A helper command, such as an API key helper or a cloud sign-in refresh. |
| Environment variables | The names an env block sets, not their values, which can be secrets. |
| MCP server | A server in a .mcp.json in the folder or a folder above it, with the command it starts or its address. |
| Plugin | A plugin the settings turn on. |
| Skill with hooks | A project skill with hooks in its frontmatter. |
| Allowed without asking | Allow rules in the folder’s .claude/settings.local.json. |
The tab’s row says it needs input while the card is up, and a message you send meanwhile goes once you’ve answered. A folder with nothing to list starts without asking. A folder that gains something later, say from a pull, is asked about at its next start.
Answering
- Trust this folder starts Claude Code as usual and remembers the folder. Folders inside it are trusted too.
- Start without it starts Claude Code without the folder’s own settings, its
.mcp.jsonservers and itsCLAUDE.md. A note in the conversation says so, and Claudette remembers the choice for the tab. - Close tab closes it. For a pinned tab the button says Unpin and close.
To use the folder’s configuration after Start without it, open the tab’s menu and choose Trust this folder. Claude Code starts again with it.
Which folders are trusted
Trust is kept on this computer and doesn’t sync. The first time Claudette runs with this feature, it trusts the folders you already use: your open tabs’, and your recent and favorite folders.
Claude Code’s own trust, the one it records when you accept its terminal dialog, isn’t read or changed. Trusting a folder in Claudette doesn’t change how Claude Code treats the folder’s shared allow rules, which it still holds back until the folder is trusted in Claude Code itself.
Settings
Settings → Claude Code → Ask before using a new folder’s own configuration (on by default). Turn it off and Claude Code starts in every folder without asking.
See also
- Your first tab: meeting the question for the first time.
- How Claudette uses Claude Code: what a tab loads from a folder once it’s trusted.