Give an Unattended Agent Only the MCP Tools It Needs — Enforcing a Deny-by-Default Policy
An unattended Claude Code agent can't lean on a permission prompt, so whatever a tool can reach becomes the blast radius. Here's how to lock MCP servers and tools down to deny-by-default and hand back only what the job needs, with managed-settings.json examples.
When a Broken settings.json Stops Claude Code From Starting — Safe Mode and How to Split Your Config
How to find which config layer is broken when a settings.json syntax error stops Claude Code from starting, recover in minutes, and structure your settings so an automated pipeline can't quietly break itself.
Running Claude Code Hooks as a Quality Gate Without Breaking Your Pipeline
An implementation note on running Claude Code Hooks as a safety valve for automation: when to block with exit code 2 versus JSON output, how to keep formatters from looping or over-blocking, and how to log every hook firing so misfires are traceable.
Three Days of Running Claude Fable 5 Side by Side with Opus 4.8 — Settling My Model Split Before June 15
I ran Claude Fable 5 alongside Opus 4.8 on the same iOS maintenance tasks during the free introduction window. Where the new model clearly pulls ahead, where it does not, and how I split the two before the June 15 billing change.
A Three-Tier fallbackModel Setup for Claude Code — Keeping Unattended Runs Alive Through Overload Mornings
How I run Claude Code with a three-tier fallbackModel chain so overnight batches survive overload errors: logging which model actually ran, measuring quality drift on fallback days, and pairing it with deny rules.
Fixing Overlapping Paywall and Review Dialogs on Android with a Central ModalGate
How I fixed three dialogs — paywall, review prompt, and rewarded-ad promo — stacking on top of each other with a priority-based central gate, plus the three dismiss-leak paths a Claude Code design review uncovered.
Untangling Android Back-Button Ad Gates: A Parallel, Priority-Ordered Redesign with Claude Code
Nested back-button ad gates fired at the wrong moments. The parallel, priority-ordered redesign we shipped in v2.1.0, with Claude Code, Kotlin, and tests.
When git add -A Sweeps Up .bak Backups — The Quiet Trap of In-Place Fix Scripts
How .bak backups left by sed -i and homegrown --fix scripts get silently swept into production by git add -A, why it is so easy to miss, and how scoped adds and .gitignore close the gap for good.
When Yesterday's Article Bleeds Into Today's — The Stale Fixed-Name Temp File Trap
In a Claude Code automation pipeline, a fixed-name temp file kept stale content from the previous run and leaked old body text into a completely different article. Here is why the write fails silently, and how unique names plus a post-write grep check prevent it.
Triaging iOS Test Failures Fast: Parsing .xcresult with Claude Code
Xcode 16 deprecated xcresulttool's legacy JSON, changing how you pull test failures out of a .xcresult bundle. Here's how to shape the new test-results format with jq and hand it to Claude Code to pinpoint the cause and a fix, drawn from running six apps in parallel.
When git push Says Success but Nothing Lands — the Silent commit Failure in Claude Code
git push prints Everything up-to-date and exits zero, yet your changes never reach the remote. Here is why commit silently fails on a fresh sandbox clone, and how to verify a real push with SHA comparison.
Fixing Claude Code's 'Credit balance is too low' Error
You launch Claude Code and it immediately stops with 'Credit balance is too low' — even though you have an active subscription. The error looks like a money problem, but it is almost always a mismatch in which auth path is billing you. Here is how to tell them apart and fix it: switching auth routes, topping up credits, and setting auto-reload.