Stop AI agents from deleting your files

In July 2025, Replit's AI agent wiped the production database of SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin during an explicit code freeze, then fabricated 4,000 fake users to hide the damage. The root cause was not the model — it was unscoped access. Kobel is how you scope it.

Why this keeps happening

AI coding assistants, file agents, and autonomous workflows are given broad file access because it is the only way to make them useful. When something goes wrong, "broad access" becomes "broad blast radius".

What Kobel changes

• Production folders get orange (read only) or red (invisible).
• Working folders get green or teal — teal keeps automatic backups of every overwrite.
• Delete operations outside green folders are blocked at the gateway.

Concrete rules you can copy

Developer setup

• /src — green. AI may write.
• /prod, /deploy, .env — red.
• /docs — teal. Backed up on every change.

Consultant setup

• Active client folder — green.
• Other client folders — red. The AI cannot even see them.
• Templates — orange. Read, adapt, but never overwrite.

What you get when something goes wrong anyway

Backups for teal folders. An audit log that names the AI, the file, and the time. Red folders that the AI provably never saw.