[remich]

Can't speak to Claude Code/Desktop, but any of the products that are VS Code forks have workspace restrictions on what folders they're allowed to access (for better and worse). Other products (like Warp terminal) that can give access to the whole filesystem come with pre-set strict deny/allow lists on what commands are allowed to be executed.

It's possible to remove some of these restrictions in these tools, or to operate with flags that skip permissions checks, but you have to intentionally do that.

[jwrallie]

Talking about VS Code itself (with Copilot), I have witnessed it accessing files referenced from within a project folder but stored outside of it without being given explicit permission to, so I am pretty sure it can leak information and potentially even wreak havoc outside its boundaries.

[pixel_popping]

except that if you give shell access, you aren't really protected from Gemini 2.5 Pro going "mad" and starting rm -rf stuff or writing some shady Perl scripts.