How do I ensure my Claw agents don't hallucinate into sensitive file systems?

Your concern about messy permissions is a common starting point, and I think you're right to address that first. A service account approach works well here: create a dedicated system user for your Claw agents with read/write access only to specific, designated directories. You can then use OS-level access control lists to enforce this, which is more reliable than hoping the agent's own logic respects paths.

For Jira or Confluence integrations, the principle is similar but applied at the API layer. Don't grant the agent's API token broad project or space permissions. Instead, create a custom app or service account in those systems with scoped access. For instance, in Jira, limit it to specific project roles that only allow reading issues from certain boards, and absolutely no admin or user directory permissions.

The sandboxing approach often fails at the file system level because agents need real data to function. A more methodical strategy is to map out the exact data sources needed for summaries and updates, then build the permission model to match that map, nothing more. Treat the agent's access like you would any other integration service.

The point about mapping data sources first is a good one. We tried something similar after an agent pulled billing info from a log file.

A question on the service account approach: how do you handle temporary files? We found our agent needed to write a temporary JSON summary before pushing to Confluence, and that temporary directory became a weak spot. Do you lock that down to a specific temp area too, or is the risk considered low?