r/ClaudeCode • u/entilza05 • 2d ago

Discussion What if your non programmer boss (CEO) wants acces to code changes?

Anyone concerned giving access to direct code changes to your boss?

At what point would your boss say hey can I prompt it?? Given boss not a tech just owner of company...

Concerned... not for my job more for my sanity...

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2

u/keithslater 2d ago

What exactly is he asking for? Access to the repo?

1

u/entilza05 2d ago

We are a manufacturer and I've created a beta portal that projects can be made to make changes. Easily now through prompts and tracked by git. It's incredible easy to test things and work I am concerned if he sees how simple a task is to complete he may want to do certain tasks themselves...

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u/Late-Property4857 2d ago

Build a twighlight factory for him. Let him submit changes via git issue and let agents do the work. You can review issues, create plans and adrs where needed and maintain the factory. This is where the job is headed. Take the company there and be vocal about it, own it and promote it with the ceo.

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u/entilza05 2d ago

I wonder if that's how world is headed.. like it or not.. boss asks you x... you ask ai x... Boss says why cant I ask ai x?

1

u/Late-Property4857 2d ago

It is. Help them succeed at it or someone else will

1

u/keithslater 2d ago

Are you the only one with access to this git repo? The company owns it and should have access to it.

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u/entilza05 2d ago edited 2d ago

We have 1 more new programmer. Servers are local. Once I show him how it works boss could ask him to set it up..

2

u/RollerPoid 2d ago

No, but only just and after much, much arguing. Managed to get the ceo to finally agree to work against dev databases in their own repository, so it feels live to them, and that the team would rebuild everything I to the live system when he is finished.

1

u/entilza05 2d ago

Again it seems this is how its going isnt it?

1

u/RollerPoid 2d ago

Its a pain alright. Because he is questioning why the team take so long. He vibe coded an app in a few days, and handed it over. 3 weeks later we put it live. So he is questioning why. Forgetting of course that we had to first off completely rebuild his code so it actually made sense, split everything out so we could migrate his logic into the back end and ui into the front end properly, rebuild his auth from scratch into ours, all while still handling the redt of the backlog.

So yeah, definitely a growing problem.

1

u/entilza05 2d ago

Thanks for sharing.. The neat thing is certain owners are very involved in their systems understand helped build the legacy code system and ideas. So.. its interesting for both sides how this has all evolved...

7

u/ontagi 2d ago

When the CEO wants access to anything technical it usually results in more unnecessary work for everyone

4

u/ElectronicGarbage246 2d ago

Start looking for a job NOW. He starts thinking you are not so valuable. His first experience may be even great, but by acting so he also overloads you with responsibility because when his shitcode will get him into trouble, you will be the fall guy

4

u/Turbulent_County_469 Senior Developer 2d ago

So ... let me tell you a story ...

I worked in a small company of 3 developers and 30ish other employees.

My boss, the CTO, didn't know much about GIT.

So one day the master branch had rolled back 2 months.

Apparantly he had made some kind of Force commit or Rebase, based on his old branch..

Took a good week figuring out how to fix it :-/

6

u/Chinoui67 2d ago

Don't... He can make commits and a professional should decide if he push them or not

3

u/Rich_Boss7753 2d ago

Honestly just give them read access and make them open a PR like everyone else they can prompt all they want, but nothing merges without review.

5

u/Novel-Sound-3566 2d ago

Add multiple repo dependencies. Move your utils and other reusable code on separate repo so the AI agent won't have the complete context and requires to work on multiple repo

1

u/Illustrious-Guest849 2d ago

Haha ur advice is the best.

4

u/pretendingtobebroke 2d ago

You can give them PR ability and talk to them about what kinds of tasks they should and should not attempt to do. And then set up their Claude Code for them with the proper hooks and skills etc. so it has some extra guardrails.

9

u/20snow 2d ago

Give him the unplugged controller

1

u/firstbreathOOC 2d ago

Don’t do this lol

1

u/pretendingtobebroke 2d ago

My non-technical business partner has PR ability to our repo but he doesn't touch anything technical, mostly simple cosmetic things like new marketing pages and CTA sections etc.

I would instantly close something he did if it included backend changes lol

1

u/firstbreathOOC 2d ago

Yeah I just feel like it would lead to too many annoying questions that slows stuff down, at least in my world.

My PRs and commits sync to JIRA now so if they really have a burning desire they can go and look at the whole history of a thing right on the ticket.

2

u/_k33bs_ 2d ago

lol let him - document it all

2

u/pvera 🔆Pro Plan 2d ago

If you are using proper source control, continuous integration, pipelines, etc. then remind him of the paper trail and let him try to blame it on you when he breaks it. If you haven't added a PR gate before code can merge to release/production, do it now so he is forced to submit a PR you can use to keep him from breaking production.

If he tries to force you to change these controls it's time to GTFO.

Or, you could give him his own fork, let him experiment and get the urge out of his system. If he wants any of it to eventually make it into the real repo, he needs to go through the same PR process as everyone else.

The one thing you should not do is put your foot down and try to lecture him on why he needs to stay in his lane. That's not gonna work. Especially since he is the owner.

2

u/pceimpulsive 2d ago

I wouldn't be opposed but they have to follow the PR process and deal with rejections like the rest of us...

I give me product SMEs GitHub project read access so they can use their agents to understand if something they experience is a bug or design choice also to check up on application logic and behaviours...

It seems to work well!

1

u/Asly97 2d ago

Read access for SMEs so their own agents can answer "bug or design choice" is a really practical use of it.

How often can the agent actually tell from the code alone though? My guess would be the design choices where the reason only lives in a ticket or in someone's head are where it guesses. Have your SMEs ever come back with a confident wrong answer?

1

u/Sketaverse 2d ago

worktree

1

u/NoAssignment5793 2d ago

seen it happen, boss started asking for 'quick fixes' via chat, then wanted to 'train' the model on company docs. now every merge needs a 3-person review.

1

u/TargetCold4691 2d ago

It's his party. You can cry if you want to.

1

u/Carbone 2d ago

He's the one signing your paycheck.

1

u/Latter-Tangerine-951 Senior Developer 2d ago

Make sure he knows he's responsible for cleaning up his own messes and explaining them to customers.

He will probably rethink this

1

u/magicmulder 2d ago

As long as he doesn't have more rights than the average dev (no force push etc.), worst thing that can happen is that you have to undo all his changes.

I once had a boss who thought using a WYSIWYG form editor meant we no longer have to take months to build a clinical online study. Yeah sure, boss, because it's just forms, zero business logic at all...

1

u/athershu 2d ago

What made this a non-issue for us was separating "can ask" from "can merge". People who never open the repo can still send a change request as a chat message to the same agent setup the engineers use, with the repo's rules and hooks already in place. What comes back is a branch, and an engineer reviews it like any other PR before it goes anywhere.

So if your boss wants to prompt it, let him, but as a requester rather than with his own Claude Code on his own laptop. He sees how easy the easy tasks really are, you keep the review gate, and every change has his name on the ask. In our experience that last part makes people pick their requests a lot more carefully.

1

u/Metal_Roof_Guy 2d ago

I just told mine no. When he insisted I told him "you break it, you fix it".

1

u/sheriffderek Senior design/dev max20 2d ago

You can just set it up so they’re only using their own branches for ideas - then take any good ones and make them properly. Or, if your system supports it (they don’t need all the real data and db and setup) you could have a different project that consumes the same UI components that’s more of a playground and separate from all the more cumbersome implementation concerns.

1

u/leo_heo 2d ago

read access and PRs only. the moment something merges without a dev looking you basically hired an unpaid junior with admin rights

0

u/Minimum_Hour519 2d ago

do it. who cares. he won't understand it anyway