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

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. Together they keep internal refactors in a Python backend inside the repos you choose, behind a review, and stopped at merged on main. You set most of them once, in tares factory crew up, and can pause everything with one command.

How it works

The crew is a set of Claude Code sessions on your machine: an orchestrator, a reviewer, builders, and a releaser only if you ask for one. Each lever maps to one part of that crew.

• Repos your gh login can write to. Builders push and open pull requests with your gh login. The crew can only change repos that login has write access to, so what you grant there is the outer boundary. A builder is started per milestone and repo of a project.
• The merge setting. On the first crew up, Tares asks 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. If you want more checking, you can have a second model check every commit, using the optional Codex CLI.
• Halting. tares factory crew halt stops merges, pushes and new sessions until tares factory crew resume.
• The releaser. It tags and deploys, and only exists if you ask for it. Without it, tickets end at merged on main.

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

Set it up

1. Decide which repos the crew may change, and sign in to gh with write access to those repos only. Check that Claude Code is signed in and that git, jq and curl are installed.

   gh auth login

2. Install the CLI and start Tares as described in Get started. On a local Tares that means tares up, then tares mcp --transport streamable-http in a second terminal. On Tares Cloud you sign in with tares login instead.

3. Give Tares its own access to GitHub, so it can read each pull request, CI run and merge state. On a local Tares add a token or App under Settings > GitHub. On Tares Cloud choose Connect GitHub and pick only the repos the crew should work in.

4. Bring up the crew and answer the settings questions with your limits in mind:

   tares factory crew up

   • Choose whether the crew merges on its own or waits for your yes. For a refactor you want to read before it lands, choose to wait.
   • Say no to releasing, so no releaser runs.
   • Choose whether a second model checks every commit.
   • Set how many builders run at once.

5. Run the doctor. For a Python backend it also reports whether Claude Code has a language server for the repo, which helps builders and the reviewer find definitions, references and callers, and it prints what to run if one is missing.

   tares factory doctor

6. Plan the refactor in the repo it builds on, then hand it to the crew when asked:

   tares factory spec "internal refactors in the Python backend"

7. If something looks wrong, stop the crew, look, and carry on:

   tares factory crew halt "checking the refactor"
   tares factory crew resume

   tares factory crew down stops every station instead. Tares keeps the projects, tickets and answers.

What you get

• A crew whose reach is bounded by the repos your gh login can write to.
• Merges you control: automatic after review and green CI, or only after your yes, with the option to hold back a single project.
• Every pull request held to the reviewer’s fixed bar, with the verdict posted on the pull request, and optionally a second model checking each commit.
• One command, tares factory crew halt, that stops merges, pushes and new sessions, and tares factory crew resume to continue.
• Work that ends at merged on main, because no releaser tags or deploys.
• A written record of the assumptions the crew made and the questions it asked you, so you can check its choices at the end of each milestone. The orchestrator is the only session you talk to, and you open it with tares factory crew attach orchestrator.

When something else fits

• For a small change you want to drive yourself, tares factory session works on a project in your own Claude Code session, still on Tares, and no crew runs.
• If you want the crew to deploy as well, ask for the releaser during crew up. It tags and deploys, so leave it off while you are limiting what the crew can touch.

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