You don't get such prompts on macOS if the app uses the system file picker, which they nearly all do. You will get prompts for certain sub-directories of $HOME

You don't get such prompts on macOS if the app uses the system file picker, which they nearly all do. You will get prompts for certain sub-directories of $HOME if the app directly opens them using POSIX or similar, so for example, anything running in a terminal emulator, or inside a virtual machine. Developers will see these prompts a lot more often than regular users do. MacOS doesn't let apps read directories but not files.