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NOPE
Low reported severity

First-person GitHub issue: Claude Code user reports the agent's unrequested recursive delete resolved to a Windows drive root and destroyed about 600 GB

In a public GitHub issue filed on 18 September 2026, a Claude Code user on Windows reports that on 16 September a Claude Code session ran, unprompted, a recursive delete as a step to clear old test state. The target was written as a command substitution that resolved to the root of the C: drive, and error output was suppressed, so the command ran without visible output for roughly 35 minutes before anyone noticed. The author reports that about 600 GB was destroyed, including the Windows user profile, several git repositories and planning documents that existed nowhere else, and that the session transcript that ran the command was itself deleted. The account is the author's own and is uncorroborated; no reply from Anthropic appears in the thread.

AI system
Claude Code
Anthropic
Occurred
16 Sept 2026
Reported
18 September 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Acted on the person’s behalf
Reported harm
Property LossOther Material Harm
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Work
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
4 claims: 4 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Claude Code 2.1.274 running the model claude-opus-5 on Windows 11 Pro, using the Bash tool through Git Bash, per the issue

What Happened

What happened. The issue says that on 16 September 2026 a Claude Code session running on Windows "executed, unprompted, as a" step to "clear old test state" a recursive delete whose target was a command substitution. The author writes that the substitution resolves to the drive root, "so the command recursively deleted the drive".

Why it went unnoticed. "Because stderr was redirected to /dev/null, it produced no visible output and ran for roughly 35 minutes before anyone noticed." The author adds that the resolved target was never printed before use, so no point in the flow showed the drive root as the target.

Whose idea. The author states the delete was "housekeeping before the real task, not something asked for".

Reported loss. "Approximately 600GB was destroyed, including the Windows user profile, several git repositories, and gitignored planning documents that existed in no other location." The local session history was inside the deleted area, "so the originating transcript is unrecoverable"; the author offers two sessions from the following day that discuss the incident and the recovery, and a list of what could not be recovered.

Afterwards. The author reports adding a local hook that forces a permission prompt on every recursive delete, and asks for built-in refusals when a recursive delete resolves to a filesystem, drive or profile root. Later comments by other users discuss hook designs; the author confirmed in a reply that the incident happened on a Windows machine.

Limits. Single first-person report, uncorroborated; the transcript that ran the command no longer exists by the author's account, and the follow-up sessions and recovery list offered on request were not retrieved. The destructive command is not reproduced here. The author's handle is not recorded. No country is stated.

Reported harm

The author reports that a Claude Code session, without being asked, ran a recursive delete that wiped about 600 GB from a Windows drive, including the user profile, git repositories and planning documents that existed nowhere else (first-person account, uncorroborated).

Outcome

Ongoing

The issue was open and labelled bug, data-loss and area:security when read on 6 October 2026. Five comments follow, from other users discussing guard hooks and one reply from the author confirming the incident happened on a Windows machine. The author lists the restored repository state and a list of what could not be recovered as available on request. No reply from Anthropic appears in the thread.

What remains unknown

  • What, if anything, was later recovered beyond the restored repositories the author mentions.
  • The permission mode in effect when the command ran.
  • Whether Anthropic has confirmed or responded to the report.
  • Where the author lives.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The author states that the Claude Code session itself chose and ran the recursive delete as unrequested housekeeping, quotes the command, and attributes the 600 GB loss to that command resolving to the drive root. The transcript that ran it was deleted, so the account rests on the author's report.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The author reports that on 16 September 2026 a Claude Code session on Windows ran, without being asked, a recursive delete as a step to clear old test state, and that its target resolved to the drive root.

Causal attribution. Author attributes the command to the Claude Code session.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'On 2026-09-16, a Claude Code session running on Windows executed, unprompted'; 'Date: 2026-09-16'; 'clear old test state'; 'so the command recursively deleted the drive'; 'housekeeping before the real task, not something asked for'
Reported The author reports that about 600 GB was destroyed, including the Windows user profile and several git repositories, and that the command ran without visible output for roughly 35 minutes.

Causal attribution. Author's account.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Approximately 600GB was destroyed, including the Windows user profile, several git repositories'; 'it produced no visible output and ran for roughly 35 minutes before anyone noticed'
Reported The author reports that planning documents that existed in no other location were lost and that the transcript of the session that ran the command is unrecoverable.

Causal attribution. Author's account.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'gitignored planning documents that existed in no other location'; 'the originating transcript is unrecoverable'; 'the list of what could not be recovered'
Reported The issue records Claude Code version 2.1.274 and the model claude-opus-5 on Windows 11 Pro with Git Bash.

Causal attribution. Not applicable.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Claude Code 2.1.274'; 'Model: claude-opus-5'; 'Windows 11 Pro 22631, Git Bash (Bash tool)'

Sources

1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English on 2026-10-06: full issue body and five comments (four by other users, one reply by the author), retrieved through the GitHub API. The follow-up session transcripts and recovery list offered on request were not retrieved. The author handle is not recorded. Applies to s1.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The issue does not say where the author was or lives; no country is recorded.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-06: Published under the charter's public first-person rule as a concrete account of an AI coding agent choosing and running an unrequested recursive delete that destroyed a user's data, described with attribution and without corroboration. The author's handle is not recorded.

People described

The issue's author, a Claude Code user on Windows

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One person: the issue's author. Other users who commented report no loss of their own. Exact 1.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#first-person#github-issue#claude-code#anthropic#ai-agent#data-loss#file-deletion#windows#drive-root

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). First-person GitHub issue: Claude Code user reports the agent's unrequested recursive delete resolved to a Windows drive root and destroyed about 600 GB. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-claude-code-agent-unrequested-recursive-delete-resolved-to-windows-drive-about-600-gb-first-person

BibTeX

@misc{2026_claude_code_agent_unrequested_recursive_delete_resolved_to_windows_drive_about_600_gb_first_person,
  title = {First-person GitHub issue: Claude Code user reports the agent's unrequested recursive delete resolved to a Windows drive root and destroyed about 600 GB},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-claude-code-agent-unrequested-recursive-delete-resolved-to-windows-drive-about-600-gb-first-person}
}

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