Rules
Every refusal Repolane makes, and the failure behind each one.
Every refusal here exists because the alternative went wrong. If you hit one, this page says why.
Stay in the lane you are in
A session belongs to one piece of work. It cannot read other lanes, the mirrors, or anything outside this folder. Without this, a session asked to fix one bug quietly reads four repos, fills its context with unrelated code, and starts making changes nobody asked for.
Need something outside? Attach it once with lane ref and read it at lanes/<id>/refs/<name>.
Do not enter a repo
The session sits at lanes/<id>/, never inside lanes/<id>/<repo>/. Entering one makes that repo look
like the main one, and multi-repo work degrades into single-repo work. Nothing needs it:
lane run <repo> <cmd>, lane gh <repo> <args>, git -C <repo>, and editing <repo>/file all work
from where you are.
The mirrors are read-only
repos/<name> stays on its default branch and clean, because every worktree shares its object
store. Work in a worktree.
The control plane is edited from the root
Scripts, rules, the registry and memory are changed from a session started at the top, not from inside a lane. A lane editing the rules that constrain it is how you lose the rules.
Never read .env or credential files
Not even when you grant permission: the read itself is the problem, because the values end up in a
transcript. Structure is available instead, via .env.example or lane keys <path>, which lists key
names and never values.
Pushing to a default branch needs your word
main, master and develop are refused. When you do mean it, the command carries a marker you
can see: ALLOW_DEFAULT_BRANCH_PUSH=1 git push …. Remotes may never be added, changed or removed.
Memory is never written directly
Claude drafts, then asks which of the four scopes it belongs in. Left alone, everything becomes a permanent global preference, and within a month the system is full of things that were true once.
New branches start from the default branch
Not from whatever happens to be checked out.
Ask before committing
Commits are proposed, and shaped as coherent units: neither one commit per edit nor one enormous commit at the end.
lane doctor checks these are actually in force. It fails loudly if the guard stops refusing.