Terminal Command Safety

Detailed patterns and examples for safe terminal command execution in AI agent contexts.

Backtick Hazard — Details

Backticks in terminal command arguments break across all shells:

• bash/zsh: backtick = command substitution (echo "use ls here" executes ls)
• PowerShell: backtick = escape character (echo "use n here"` inserts newline)

Ref: vscode#295620

Safe Pattern (bash)