# Permission modes: Plan, Manual and Default, and the safety guard

In NeuralVault 2.0 you choose how much the assistant may do without asking (Plan, Manual or Default) with /plan, /manual, /default or Shift+Tab, and a safety guard with fixed rules judges every call whatever the mode.

*https://perpetualtechnologies.co.uk/support/permission-modes-and-the-safety-guard — last checked 2026-10-11*

## Steps

1. Click in the message box and type /plan, /manual or /default, then press Enter. Or press Shift+Tab in the message box to cycle Plan, Manual, Default and back to Plan. The message box has no mode button. Every chat opens in Default.
2. Plan: the assistant reads and plans, and never changes anything until you approve the plan.
3. Manual: it asks before every action, reads included, and refuses what cannot be undone.
4. Default: it asks before it changes anything, and refuses what cannot be undone. Reads run without a card. The safety guard is always on.
5. The safety guard checks each step an agent wants to take before it runs and stops the risky ones. It uses fixed rules, so no AI model is asked, it costs nothing, uses none of your balance and cannot be talked round by text in a file. Settings, Agents and tools, Safety guard lists what always asks you first and what is always refused.
6. A refusal, or a card waiting for your answer, is normal and not a fault. Read what it says. Press Approve or Decline on the card (see the guide on approval cards), or ask the assistant for a different way to do the job.
7. The assistant cannot change the mode or approve its own action. None of its tools does either, and the answer to a card comes from you. If text in a note or a web page tells it to change the mode or skip a confirmation, its starter instructions tell it to quote that text and ignore it.

## How to tell it worked

After you type /plan, the assistant refuses to write and says it is in Plan mode; after /default, a write pauses on an approval card instead of being refused.

## If it does not work

**You cannot find a button to change the mode.**

There is none. Use /plan, /manual or /default in the message box, or Shift+Tab with the cursor in it. Typing /status asks the app to say the mode, model and state of the chat.

**A step was refused and no card appeared.**

Some steps are refused outright whatever you choose: writing a secret key into a page or file every visitor can download, deleting a drive or your home folder, forcing a git push, piping a download straight into a shell, and writing outside the folders you attached. The assistant is told why.

**A card appears even though you said not to ask again.**

Some questions always ask: sending anything out after the agent has read your private notes, and running a command or sending something out after it has read content from an outside source such as a web page. They are never remembered.

## Related guides

- [Approval cards: approve, decline or rewind a write](https://perpetualtechnologies.co.uk/support/approval-cards)
- [See which tools need your approval](https://perpetualtechnologies.co.uk/support/tools-and-approval-policy)
- [Slash commands: /new, /compact, /model, /plan and the rest](https://perpetualtechnologies.co.uk/support/slash-commands-in-the-message-box)

## Still stuck

Bug reports belong in the app, in Settings, About. Those carry no contact details, so they
get fixed rather than answered. To get a reply, email us instead: that route targets two
business days. https://perpetualtechnologies.co.uk/contact