Can test rule change application

Question

I am looking to add a test rule that I can edit at any time to our production environment, as a way to query the database without having direct access to the database. This rule will not have any dependents on it, and I will have view only access to all other objects in the application. 
 The important thing about this rule is that I am not able to use it to make any changes to the database or any other part of the application, while being able to use it to make (read only) queries to the database. I need to not be able to affect anything in the application with this rule, no matter what edits I make to the rule. Could I theoretically configure this rule to change anything in the application?

Mike Schmitt · Accepted Answer

In general, if you have an expression rule that does a query (i.e. via a!queryEntity), there is no normal way that it could write changes back to the database. It would require quite a bit of editing on the fly though if you want it to be able to query random different database tables at different times.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Thinking about this further - you should be able to create the query rule(s) with visibility granted to a specific group that would reflect what your role would be ("O&M support staff" maybe?) - in your Dev environment you could presumably add just a test user to this group and verify that it works the way you intend when logged in as that test user; once deployed to production, your own account would be added to that group.