macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow

macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from gaelic-ghost/socket. It costs 61 tokens per session (1,104 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A workflow for giving sandboxed macOS apps the right access to files and folders. It explains user-selected access, App Groups, security-scoped bookmarks, filesystem permissions, and other system controls.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when an app must open, save, import, export, drag, share, or persist access to files, folders, helpers, or extensions.
Why use it?
It helps distinguish temporary selection access from permission that survives relaunches, and identifies whether a denial comes from the sandbox, privacy controls, or the filesystem.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the apple-dev-skills plugin — 65 skills, 2 MCP servers shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow
Any agent
npx skills add gaelic-ghost/socket --skill macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gaelic-ghost/socket

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install apple-dev-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 65 skills, 2 MCP servers.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gaelic-ghost/socket/macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 61 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,104 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00061 $0.01104
Opus 5 $0.00030 $0.00552
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00221
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00110

Measured yesterday against content hash 758a4ce64beb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/apple-dev-skills/skills/macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow/SKILL.md · 71 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 71 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

macOS Sandbox File Access Workflow

Purpose

Preserve user intent and access lifetime while selecting the smallest supported file-access mechanism. Treat a URL or path as resource identity, not durable authorization, and keep App Sandbox, TCC, POSIX, and mandatory controls distinct.

When To Use

  • Use when a sandboxed Mac app must open, save, import, export, drag, share, or persist access to files or directories.
  • Use when access succeeds during selection but fails after relaunch, in a helper, or after a move/rename.
  • Use to identify whether a remaining denial is sandbox, TCC, filesystem, volume, coordination, Data Vault, or SIP policy.

Single-Path Workflow

  1. Record the data owner, exact operation, resource type, read/write/execute need, persistence duration, process boundary, distribution channel, macOS build, and exact error.
  2. Read references/sandbox-and-filesystem-control-map.md and identify every applicable control layer before choosing a capability.
  3. Use the app container or a standard supported container-relative directory when it satisfies the feature. Use an App Group only for a real same-team shared-container requirement.
  4. Prefer direct user selection through the appropriate open/save panel, document URL, drag/drop, or Photos/File Provider selection surface for external data.
  5. Request only the user-selected read-only, read-write, or executable entitlement that the feature actually needs. Do not replace a narrow selection with Full Disk Access.
  6. Create a security-scoped bookmark only when access must survive the current interaction or process lifetime. Follow every step in references/security-scoped-bookmark-lifecycle.md.
  7. For helpers, XPC services, app extensions, or shared containers, use references/helpers-groups-and-process-boundaries.md; verify which process resolves and consumes authorization rather than passing a path and assuming authority follows.
  8. Perform the narrow operation and balance every successful startAccessingSecurityScopedResource() with stopAccessingSecurityScopedResource(). Do not retain access indefinitely for convenience.
  9. If access still fails, classify the exact denying layer: path resolution/symlink, ownership/mode/ACL, sandbox, TCC Files and Folders/Full Disk Access, mount/volume state, coordination, Data Vault, SIP, or service policy.
  10. Validate relaunch, moved/renamed/removed resources, read-only enforcement, helper/extension behavior, revoked/inaccessible access, stale and malformed bookmark recovery, and privacy-safe logging using references/validation-fixtures.md.

Read the full file on GitHub · 71 lines

Files

What ships with it

6 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 71 lines · 61 tokens per session scan A 758a4ce64beb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

macos-sandbox-file-access-workflow is a skill published in the GitHub repository gaelic-ghost/socket (7 stars, last pushed 9d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 61 tokens to every session and 1,104 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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