The software world
Blast radius
How far the consequences of an action can reach if it goes wrong. The same action has a different blast radius depending on where you point it — deleting a file in a scratch folder and deleting one in a shared project are the same command and not remotely the same risk.
Why it matters
Part of Deciding what to approve → It's the vocabulary that lets you sort approve-or-decline decisions at a glance, on a ladder: just this chat → a scratch file → your project → your machine → other people. The action never tells you the blast radius; the location does, which is why reading the path matters more than reading the verb. Worth knowing that reading counts too — a sensitive file Claude reads is now in the conversation.