Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
You gave two responses to the players question, "Can I disarm it?".Fwiw, I don't thinking "rulings over rules," a phrase taken from the OSR, actually applies to most 5e gameplay as it has evolved over the years. A lot of 5e gameplay is all about parsing the rules to resolve a situation, particularly in combat, but also out of combat when it comes to task resolution. Consider Matt Finch's contrasting examples of play from the "Rulings, not rules" section of his Old School Primer:
• Modern DM: "What is your target number?"
• Old School DM: "How?"
My modern 5e DM style emphasizes narrative adjudication: "narrative not numbers". So I too ask the players, "How?" Things like it being too dark to see the pit trap clearly, or locating access to the mechanism, might then invite disadvantage or advantage to the skill check, as the players decide how to go about interacting with the narrative challenge.