[FEATURE]: allow /tmp or $TMPDIR folder access option

Feature hasn't been suggested before.

I have verified this feature I'm about to request hasn't been suggested before.

Describe the enhancement you want to request

Can we have an option to allow write access under /tmp or $TMPDIR to when they are outside of current project directory? Or we can also make the external_directory more extensible like the following

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "permission": {
    "external_directory": {
      "env:$TMPDIR": "allow",
      "/tmp": "allow",
      "*": "allow",
    }
  }
}

What do you guys think?

This issue might be a duplicate of existing issues. Please check:

Permission system broken #4642: Permission system broken - discusses limitations with external_directory restrictions and sandboxing
Limiting access for tools in a safer way #4667: Limiting access for tools in a safer way - proposes read/write path configurations for sandboxing
OpenTUI appears to not be respecting setting TMPDIR when starting up, leading to failure to initialize OpenTUI library #4605: OpenTUI respecting TMPDIR issue - related to /tmp directory access problems

Feel free to ignore if this is specifically about the feature to configure /tmp access via config options.

slightly similar request like #4667

Yeah we need better more granular permissions setup

The environment variable BUN_TMPDIR might be what you're looking for. See this comment for reference: #4605 (comment).

Setting BUN_TMPDIR to a directory on a partition mounted with the exec option helped resolve my "Failed to initialize OpenTUI render library: Failed to open library" error. Although you didn't specify your exact use case, it should function similarly to TMPDIR.

from my reading, it definitely seems like #5386 is the same as this, and that issue has been fixed

Still an issue as of v1.2.21 (Mar 2026).
My use case: a multi-agent writes a shared payload file to /tmp/ so that subagents can read it (avoids repeating large context inline). Subagents with "read": "allow" silently fail to read files under /tmp/ because external_directory defaults to "ask" — and subagents never surface the permission prompt.
Workaround: explicitly setting "external_directory": { "/tmp/**": "allow" } per subagent in opencode.json. Works, but verbose.
+1 for a first-class $TMPDIR / /tmp allow option — or at minimum, making external_directory: "ask" actually prompt for subagents instead of silently blocking.

This is how I set this:

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "permission": {
    "external_directory": {
      "*": "ask",
      "/tmp/**": "allow"
    }
  }
}

You could also try to add another entry like "{env:TMPDIR}/**": "allow", but I wouldn't do it... if that env variable is not set, it could have pretty unpleasant consequences in case it resolves to "/**".

just gave opencode a try..
at least, please, improve the error message.

$ opencode
Error: Unexpected error

An error occurred in Effect.tryPromise

this is the failure that happens.. without any error message anywhere or log.
mounting /tmp with noexec is hardening.. normies don't harden their systems..

I literally have this in my .zshrc now:

opencode() {
  local t="${XDG_CACHE_HOME:-$HOME/.cache}/opencode/tmp"
  mkdir -p "$t"
  BUN_TMPDIR="$t" command opencode "$@"
}

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[FEATURE]: allow /tmp or $TMPDIR folder access option #4743

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[FEATURE]: allow /tmp or $TMPDIR folder access option #4743

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github-actions commented on Nov 25, 2025

jiyeol-lee-kds commented on Nov 25, 2025

rekram1-node commented on Nov 25, 2025

camAtGitHub commented on Nov 30, 2025

Mattwmaster58 commented on Feb 8, 2026

diegonix commented on Mar 8, 2026

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GottZ commented on Jun 16, 2026

github-actions commented on Aug 16, 2026

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