safecmd

Safer wrappers for rm and cp with trash-first behavior and directory-scope controls.

Features

• Safe deletion: Moves files to system trash instead of permanent deletion
• GNU-like interface: Supports familiar rm / cp flags with a focused subset
• Execution control: Allows operations in current directory tree and optionally in additional directories via config

Usage

rm [OPTIONS] <PATH>...

Options

• -d Allow removing empty directories
• -f Force removal, ignore non-existent files
• -r Remove directories recursively

Examples

# Remove an empty directory
rm -d empty_dir
# Remove a directory and its contents recursively
rm -r dir file.txt

# Force removal, ignore if files don't exist
rm -f non_existent.txt existing.txt

Configuration

The rm command (from safecmd package) requires a configuration file at ~/.config/safecmd/config.toml to specify additional allowed directories. The file is automatically created on first run. You can also start from config.example.toml in this repository.

Configuration Format

[additional_allowed_directories]
paths = [
    "/home/user/shared",
    "/Users/yourname/Documents",
]

[notify]
macos_notify = false

Environment Variables

SafeCmd supports several environment variables for configuration and testing:

SAFECMD_CONFIG_PATH

• Purpose: Override the default configuration file location
• Default: ~/.config/safecmd/config.toml
• Example: SAFECMD_CONFIG_PATH=/custom/path/config.toml rm file.txt

SAFECMD_DISABLE_TEST_MODE

• Purpose: Force-disable explicit test mode
• Effect: Ignores SAFECMD_TEST_MODE=1 and keeps normal scope restrictions
• Example: SAFECMD_DISABLE_TEST_MODE=1 SAFECMD_TEST_MODE=1 rm file.txt

SAFECMD_TEST_MODE

• Purpose: Explicitly enable allow-all mode for tests only
• Effect: Only SAFECMD_TEST_MODE=1 enables allow-all (/) scope
• Example: SAFECMD_TEST_MODE=1 cargo test

CARGO_MANIFEST_DIR and CARGO are not used for automatic test mode detection.

Flag Behavior vs GNU Coreutils

The tables below summarize implemented behavior in safecmd versus GNU rm and GNU cp.

rm flags

Flag	safecmd rm behavior	GNU rm behavior	Notes
-d	Removes only empty directories by moving them to trash	Removes empty directories permanently	Same condition, different deletion target (trash vs permanent)
-f	Ignores missing paths and suppresses that error	Ignores missing paths and suppresses prompts/errors	Similar for missing files; no interactive prompt mode in safecmd
-r	Recursively removes directories by moving them to trash	Recursively removes directories permanently	Same recursion intent, different deletion target
-R	Alias of -r	Alias of -r	Equivalent in both
Unsupported (for example -i, -I, --one-file-system)	Not available	Available depending on flag	safecmd rm intentionally supports a smaller safe subset

cp flags

Flag	safecmd cp behavior	GNU cp behavior	Notes
-r	Enables recursive directory copy	Enables recursive directory copy	Recursion enabled
-R	Alias of -r	Alias of recursive copy	Recursion enabled
--recursive	Enables recursive directory copy	Enables recursive directory copy	Recursion enabled
-n	Skips overwrite when destination is an existing regular file	--no-clobber: does not overwrite existing files	safecmd cp keeps type-conflict errors (for example file-to-directory)
No recursive flag (directory source)	Fails with omitting directory	Fails with -r not specified; omitting directory	Same outcome; wording differs
Overwrite existing target	Moves existing target to trash, then copies	Overwrites destination directly	safecmd cp adds a trash-first safety step
Unsupported (for example -a, -p, --preserve)	Not available	Available depending on flag	safecmd cp currently supports a focused subset