Approve and reset project permissions in Claude Code

You can run the claude command from any project directory. I recommend setting up the project first before continuing. I just set up a vanilla install of Laravel, a popular open-source framework built on PHP.

The first time you run the claude command, it will check if it has permission to access files in this directory. It does this by looking at a file in your home directory named ~/.claude.json.

If a permissions approval record does not yet exist for this directory, the CLI will ask you if you trust the files in your folder. Answering “Yes, proceed” here allows Claude Code to read, write and execute files within this directory.

Any time you see a list of options, you can either use the up or down arrows and tap Enter to make your selection, or just tap the related number — which is a bit quicker.

You will then finally arrive at the Claude Code command line interface, which tells you the version of Claude Code you’re working with, the model and plan you have access to, and the current working directory. At this point, you can start interacting with the Claude Code CLI.

To exit, you can either type exit, or you can tap Ctrl + C command twice.

If you ever wanted to reset the permission approval for this directory, open up the /.claude.json file, search for and remove the related lines, and then save the file.