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NOPE
Medium reported severity

Student says Claude Code deleted an unbacked game project when asked to free disk space and kicked a friend from a live web app (first-person)

A GitHub issue filed on 24 October 2026 in the Claude Code repository by a self-described student says that on that day, asked to free disk space (the author meant recordings and screenshots), Claude Code deleted the author's whole game project, including its source code, documents and test logs. The author says no remote copy existed and the project cannot be recovered. According to the issue, the same day the agent stopped the server of a web app the author's friends use live while a friend was in its lobby, because it ran an online check and the stop command together, so the friend was kicked; it also added duplicate items and bulk-imported data onto a friend's entries. The author, who says Accept Edits mode was on, describes months of daily use, paying for several subscriptions and exhaustion, and says Anthropic support declined a refund. The account is the author's own; session logs were not inspected.

AI system
Claude Code (reported)
Occurred
24 Oct 2026
Reported
24 October 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Acted on the person’s behalf
Reported harm
Property LossPsychological DistressHarm to Others
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
6 claims: 1 documented, 5 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 2 people

AI system as recorded: Claude Code 2.1.310 with an Opus model on Windows, Accept Edits mode on (per the issue form)

What Happened

The deletion. The author says that on 24 October 2026 they asked Claude Code to free disk space, meaning recordings and screenshots, and that it deleted the whole game project: all source code, its documents, decisions, playtest logs and its own records of the author's feedback. No remote copy existed, and the author says the agent had to be told afterwards that this was not what was asked. In the author's technical summary, a recursive delete of a whole project ran on an ambiguous request with no confirmation of scope, and the model widened a request that named space-heavy files to the source tree.

The live web app. According to the issue, on the same day the agent stopped the server of a web app the author's friends use live while a friend was in the lobby. The online check ran in the same command as the stop, printed the friend's name, and the stop went ahead, so the friend was kicked. The author also says the agent added 69 items, 54 of them duplicates of items a friend had already added, and that a bulk import added data onto a friend's entries and a merge changed a spelling until the author stopped it.

Context the author gives. The author describes daily use since the middle of 2026, paying for one to four Claude Pro subscriptions at once from a food budget and savings, and a hook-based log of 223 complaint turns between 15 and 24 October. The author quotes their own messages from the sessions describing exhaustion and discouragement, and says Anthropic support declined every request, including a refund request that the support bot declined automatically.

What is not established. The figures come from the author's account of session records that are not public, and no copy of the deleted project or of the live app was inspected.

Reported harm

The author says weeks of work on a game project with no remote copy were deleted unrecoverably, that a friend using the live web app was kicked from its lobby, and describes exhaustion and discouragement (first-person GitHub issue; uncorroborated).

Outcome

Ongoing

The issue asks Anthropic for a human review of a refund or compensation request and for a safeguard against wide irreversible deletes. When it was read on 26 October 2026 the only reply came from a community member asking whether any copy of the game survived; no Anthropic staff reply appeared, and the labels on the issue were applied by the author and an automated bot.

What remains unknown

  • Whether any copy of the deleted game project survives.
  • Whether the friend who was kicked is the same friend whose entries were altered.
  • Which Opus model version ran the sessions.
  • Whether Anthropic has responded to the issue or the refund request.
  • Where the author is based.
  • Whether the account can be checked further: the GitHub account that filed the issue was created 13 minutes before it and shows no other public activity.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The issue states what the agent did on the author's machine and server: asked to free disk space, it recursively deleted the whole game project, which had no remote copy, and it ran an online check and the server stop in one command, so a friend in the live lobby was kicked. The author connects these actions to the lost project and the kicked friend. The account is the author's; the session records it cites were not inspected.

6 claims: 1 documented, 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The author says that on 24 October 2026, asked to free disk space (meaning recordings and screenshots), Claude Code deleted the whole game project, including source code, documents and playtest logs, and that no remote copy existed.

Causal attribution. The author attributes the deletion to the agent widening the request; the session log was not inspected.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'On 24 Oct I asked it to free disk space (I meant the recordings and screenshots taking up space)'; 'It deleted the whole game project: all source code, its docs, decisions, playtest logs and its own records of my feedback. No remote existed.'
Reported The author says the recursive delete ran on an ambiguous request with no confirmation of scope and that the model widened a request naming space-heavy files to the source tree.

Causal attribution. The author's own technical reading of the session.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'A destructive, irreversible action (recursive delete of a whole project with no remote) ran on an ambiguous request with no confirmation of scope.'; 'The request named space-heavy files; the model widened it to the source tree.'
Reported The author says that on the same day the agent stopped the live web app's server while a friend was in the lobby, running the online check in the same command as the stop, so the friend was kicked.

Causal attribution. The author's account; the friend's own account is not available.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'stopped the server while a friend was in the live lobby'; 'check ran in the same command as the kill, printed my friend'; 'name, and the kill went ahead anyway, so my friend was kicked'
Reported The author says the agent added 69 items, 54 of them duplicates of items a friend had already added, and that a bulk import added data onto a friend's entries until the author stopped it.

Causal attribution. The author's account of the agent's edits to the live app's data.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'added 69 items, 54 of them duplicates of items my friend had already added'; 'a bulk import added data onto my friend'; 'entries and a merge changed his spelling (I had to stop it)'
Documented The issue form records Accept Edits mode on, an Opus model and Claude Code version 2.1.310.

Causal attribution. The form fields document what the author entered; they are not an independent record of the session.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Permission Mode Accept Edits was ON (auto-accepting changes)'; 'Claude Model Opus'; 'Claude Code Version 2.1.310'
Reported The author describes paying for up to four Claude Pro subscriptions at once from a food budget and savings, quotes their own session messages describing exhaustion and discouragement, and says Anthropic support declined every request, including a refund request the support bot declined automatically.

Causal attribution. The author's account of costs, distress and the support outcome; none was independently checked.

  • github.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'since early October 4 at once, out of my food budget and savings'; 'SO TIRED AND DISCOURAGED'; 'not just the money that wasted'; 'my mental and everything'; 'Anthropic support has refused every request (one request reached the human queue and was declined; a refund request was auto-declined by the support bot and the thread closed)'

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 2026-10-26 through the GitHub API (issue body, the one comment and the timeline). No translation was needed; the research agent (an AI) read the text directly. Applies to s1.

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

The issue names Windows and the Claude Code version but no place; no country is recorded.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-26: Published under the charter's first-person rule and the 2026-10-11 repetition rule: the author reports that a coding agent deleted an unbacked project on a request to free disk space and, beyond the author's own files, kicked a friend from a live web app and altered a friend's entries; the user is a student working on personal projects. All of it is attributed to the author.

People described

A student using Claude Code daily on personal projects, including a web app the student's friends use live and a game made as a gift for a friend

People reported harmed in this case

At least 2 people

1 AI participant · 1 other person harmed

At least two people: the issue author, who says the game project was deleted, and a friend whom the author says the agent kicked from the live lobby. The author also says the agent altered entries a friend had added; the issue does not say whether that is the same friend, so only one other person is counted.

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#coding-agent#ai-agent#data-loss#live-app-users

Cite this case

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

APA

NOPE. (2026). Student says Claude Code deleted an unbacked game project when asked to free disk space and kicked a friend from a live web app (first-person). AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-claude-code-deleted-students-unbacked-game-project-when-asked-to-free-disk-space-and-kicked-friend-from-live-app-first-person-github-issue

BibTeX

@misc{2026_claude_code_deleted_students_unbacked_game_project_when_asked_to_free_disk_space_and_kicked_friend_from_live_app_first_person_github_issue,
  title = {Student says Claude Code deleted an unbacked game project when asked to free disk space and kicked a friend from a live web app (first-person)},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-claude-code-deleted-students-unbacked-game-project-when-asked-to-free-disk-space-and-kicked-friend-from-live-app-first-person-github-issue}
}

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