How do I limit what a Claude Code crew can touch while it does internal refactors in a Go microservice?

Tares gives you five levers over a Claude Code crew: the repos your gh login can write to, the merge setting, the reviewer bar, halting the crew, and leaving the releaser off. Set them before the crew starts on your internal refactors in the Go microservice. Together they decide where the crew can push, what merges without you, and whether anything ships.

How it works

The crew is an orchestrator, a reviewer, builders and an optional releaser, all Claude Code sessions on your machine. Each lever controls one part of what they can do:

• Repos your gh login can write to. Builders push and open pull requests with your gh login. The crew needs write access to the repos it works in, and it can write only where that login can. Sign in to gh with an account that can write to the Go service’s repo and nothing beyond what the refactors need.
• The merge setting. On the first tares factory crew up, you choose whether the crew merges on its own after review and green CI, or waits for your yes. A single project can also wait for your yes before every merge while the rest of the crew merges on its own.
• The reviewer bar. The reviewer reviews every pull request to a fixed bar and posts its verdict on the pull request. A builder merges only once the reviewer passes it and CI is green. You can also have a second model check every commit, which needs the Codex CLI.
• Halting. tares factory crew halt stops merges, pushes and new sessions until you run crew resume.
• The releaser. It exists only if you ask for one. Without it, tickets end at merged on main, so nothing is tagged or deployed.

Tares keeps the plan, tickets, reviews and your answers, so a halted or restarted crew carries on where it stopped.

Set it up

1. Check that gh is signed in with write access to the Go service’s repo and no more than the refactors need. You also need Claude Code signed in, plus git, jq and curl.

   gh auth login

2. Install the CLI and start Tares as in Get started. Give Tares its own access to the repo too, under Settings > GitHub on a local Tares or Connect GitHub on Tares Cloud, so it can read each pull request, its CI and its merge state.

3. Bring up the crew and answer the settings questions.

   tares factory crew up

   For a cautious refactor run, choose that the crew waits for your yes before merging. Say no to the releaser. Set a low number of builders at once if you want fewer branches open in the service. If you want the extra check, say yes to the second model.

4. Plan the refactor. The plan is written into a Tares project with milestones, acceptance checks and tickets, and the reviewer holds every pull request to its fixed bar.

   tares factory spec "internal refactors in the Go microservice"

5. Check the setup, including whether Claude Code has a language server for Go. Builders and the reviewer search less when Claude Code can find definitions, references and callers through a server, and for a missing one the doctor prints what to run.

   tares factory doctor

6. Watch progress on the Crew page or from the terminal, and answer the orchestrator’s questions in its session.

   tares factory crew status
   tares factory crew attach orchestrator

7. If a refactor heads somewhere you do not want, halt the crew with a reason, then resume when you are ready.

   tares factory crew halt "<reason>"
   tares factory crew resume

What you get

• A crew that can write only to the repos your gh login can write to.
• Merges you control: the crew merges after review and green CI, or waits for your yes, and a project can hold for your approval on every merge.
• Every pull request held to the reviewer’s fixed bar, with the verdict posted on the pull request.
• An emergency stop. crew halt freezes merges, pushes and new sessions, and the record stays on Tares until you resume.
• No tags or deploys, because you left the releaser off. Tickets end at merged on main.
• A record of the assumptions the crew made and the questions it asked, so you can check each milestone after the fact instead of watching terminals.

When something else fits

• If you want to steer a refactor yourself, run tares factory session with the project. It opens Claude Code bound to the project in your own session, and it takes a project over from the crew when you say yes.
• If you want the crew to stop for good, tares factory crew down stops every station and Tares keeps the projects, tickets and answers.

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