macOS File-Access Prompts

The first time you index or analyse a project on a Mac, macOS may ask whether azuma nori is allowed to access one of your personal folders. Whether it asks, and about which folder, is decided by where your project's source code lives — the folder you chose as the project's Root Directory. This page shows which location leads to which prompt, and where to keep your projects so that macOS asks nothing at all.

The short version

Keep each project in a folder of its own directly under your home folder — for example ~/Developer/my-app or ~/Projects/my-app — with its Data Directory beside it, such as ~/Developer/my-app-nori. macOS does not protect those locations, so it asks nothing. A project inside Documents, Desktop or Downloads means one prompt for that folder: click Allow (Erlauben).

Your source folder decides the prompt

Indexing and analysing a project happen inside its Root Directory: nori's analysis engine and the AI coding assistant you configured read and search the code there. macOS keeps a handful of personal locations behind your explicit consent, so when the Root Directory is in one of them — or contains one — macOS asks before anything there can be read:

Where the Root Directory is	What macOS asks	What to do
A folder of its own under your home folder, such as ~/Developer/my-app or ~/Projects/my-app	Nothing.	Nothing — this is the recommended place.
Inside Documents, Desktop or Downloads, such as ~/Documents/code/my-app	One prompt for that folder, with nori's explanation that it reads the project you picked.	Click Allow — or move the project (below).
Inside Music, Pictures or Movies	macOS may ask about that library, in its own generic wording — nori has no explanation to offer for a library it has no use for.	Move the project out.
On an external drive or a network share	One prompt for files on that removable or network volume.	Click Allow, and pick the project's own folder on the drive, not the top level of the drive.
A folder that is or contains Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures or Movies — ~/Documents itself, say, or on Windows a OneDrive folder that holds your Desktop	nori warns when you pick it; if you use it anyway, macOS asks about every protected folder in it, and the analysis wades through files that have nothing to do with your project.	Pick the project folder itself.
Your home folder, /Users or the top of your disk (/)	Nothing — nori refuses these folders, because macOS would ask about every protected folder at once.	Pick the project folder itself.

macOS remembers your answer per folder, so each prompt appears once, not on every run.

The Data Directory counts too. nori's analysis engine works in the Data Directory and writes its results there, so a Data Directory inside Documents or on the Desktop draws that folder's prompt as well — even when the code itself lives somewhere neutral. Keep it beside the project, never inside it (see Standalone Client).

So does a model's test folder. Under AI Models, a model's CLI Test Directory / Base Path is where Test Connection runs your coding assistant. Point it at one of your project folders, not at your home folder: from your home folder, a test can reach Desktop, Documents, Downloads and more, and macOS asks about each of them under nori's name.

Where to keep your projects

1. Create one folder for all your code directly in your home folder — in Finder, Go → Home, then File → New Folder — and call it, for example, Developer or Projects.
2. Keep each project in a folder of its own inside it (~/Developer/my-app), with its Data Directory beside it (~/Developer/my-app-nori).
3. Choose those two folders as the Root Directory and the Data Directory when you create the project.

Already have a project in Documents or on the Desktop? Move its folder to ~/Developer in Finder, then point nori at the new location under Project Settings → Relocate Workspace.

Does the project have to stay where it is — a folder your company syncs, for example? That is fine: expect exactly one prompt for that location, carrying nori's explanation, and click Allow.

Why the prompt names nori

macOS calls this protection Transparency, Consent and Control: an app may read these folders only after you have said yes once. Three things about it explain the prompts you see:

• The prompt names the app you started, not the process that reached the folder. An analysis is not done by the nori window alone: nori starts local helper processes on your machine — the analysis engine, and the AI coding assistant you configured — and everything any of them reads is, as far as macOS is concerned, azuma nori reading it. So a prompt with nori's name on it is not by itself proof that nori went looking through that folder.
• nori reads your project; it does not change it. The only places nori writes are the ones you point it at: the Data Directory, and the file or folder you name in a save or export dialog, plus its own settings, in the application-support folder every Mac app keeps. macOS grants an app read and write access to a folder you approve, so a prompt can be raised by either. Your source files are not modified, and your code is not uploaded to azuma — see Telemetry & Privacy.
• An explanation makes a prompt clearer; it never removes it. For Desktop, Documents and Downloads, nori supplies its own sentence about reading your project, so you see why it is asking. For a folder nori has no business in, there is no sentence from us, and macOS falls back to its own generic wording.

What about the Apple Music prompt?

nori has no music feature. It never opens your music library, and it asks macOS for no such permission — which is exactly why, if that prompt does appear, it carries Apple's generic wording rather than an explanation from azuma.

What can happen is the first point above: a helper process searching a folder that is too wide reaches far enough into your home directory to touch a personal library, and macOS puts nori's name on the question. We have not yet reproduced this in our own lab, so we will not tell you it is definitely the cause — but the remedy is the same either way: keep the project where nothing is protected (above). If you see the prompt, you can safely click Don't Allow (Nicht erlauben): nothing in nori needs your music.

What nori says when you pick a folder

nori checks the Root Directory and the Data Directory before accepting them:

What you picked	What the dialog says
Your home folder	"This is your home folder." — nori refuses it and offers only Choose a different folder.
A folder above your home folder, such as /Users or /	"This folder contains your home folder." — refused the same way.
On Windows, the top level of another drive, such as D:\	"This is the top level of a drive." — refused the same way.
A folder that is Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures or Movies	For example, "This is your Desktop folder." — with Choose a different folder or Use this folder anyway.
A folder that contains one or more of those, but not your home folder	Naming the folders it found inside, for example "This folder contains your Desktop and Documents folders." — with the same two buttons.

On a Mac the dialog shows that sentence in bold, an explanation beneath it, and the buttons. The explanation reads "nori would read everything under this folder — pick the project folder itself.", preceded on a refusal by "nori cannot use it as a project or data folder.", and it adds that macOS would also ask, under nori's name, for permission to access the folder — or, where the folder holds protected ones, each protected folder inside it. A project that merely sits inside Documents is accepted without a warning: that one prompt is legitimate. The same check runs on Windows and Linux — a workspace that wide is a poor idea everywhere — but the consent prompts are macOS's own.

Changing your mind later

Answers are not permanent. Under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders (Systemeinstellungen → Datenschutz & Sicherheit → Dateien und Ordner) you can withdraw or restore nori's access to any folder it has already asked you about; media libraries have their own entry under Media & Apple Music (Medien & Apple Music). The pane lists only folders an app has already requested, so it is not where you grant access in advance — macOS asks the first time nori needs one. After a change, macOS will ask you to quit and reopen nori for it to take effect. Withdrawing access to a folder your project lives in will make the next analysis fail to read your code — restore it, or move the project somewhere neutral.

The German wording of the prompts

nori's own dialogs are in English. The macOS prompts follow your system language, so on a German Mac you will see:

English	German
"azuma nori would like to access files in your Documents folder"	"„azuma nori“ möchte auf Daten in deinem Dokumente-Ordner zugreifen"
Allow / Don't Allow	Erlauben / Nicht erlauben
Desktop, Documents, Downloads	Schreibtisch, Dokumente, Downloads
Music, Pictures, Movies	Musik, Bilder, Filme
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders	Systemeinstellungen → Datenschutz & Sicherheit → Dateien und Ordner

Related

• Installation — the first-run prompt, in context.
• Create a Project — where the two folders are chosen.
• Telemetry & Privacy — what does and does not leave your machine.
• FAQ — the short answer to this and other common questions.