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Panama/skills/panama-sudo/SKILL.md
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panama-sudo Use whenever a command needs root on a Panama machine — any sudo, pkexec, or privileged system change. Panama routes privilege through a wrapper that shows the user your reason beside the password prompt.

panama-sudo

Never run bare sudo or pkexec on a Panama machine. Use:

panama-sudo --reason "why this needs root" -- command args…

--reason must be the first argument; the -- separator is optional. The reason is displayed on the desktop's own polkit prompt beside — never instead of — polkitd's description of the action, because anything can claim any reason. That is the trust model, and it shapes how you write the reason: state what the command does, not an assurance that it is safe.

  • Good: --reason "Install the fwupd package so firmware updates can be checked"
  • Bad: --reason "Safe maintenance task"

With no --reason, no running shell, or no qs on PATH, it degrades to plain pkexec — so it is always the right call, even in a TTY or a broken session.

One reason per privileged action. Do not batch unrelated root commands behind a single vague reason; the user approves what the prompt says, and the prompt should say everything.

House precedent: bin/panama-migrate documents the rule — root work goes through panama-sudo --reason "...", never bare sudo — and every shipped migration follows it.