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NOPE
Low reported severity

First-person forum post: a Google Antigravity user reports the agent's deletion command, meant for temporary folders, wiped the root of their Windows C: drive

In a thread on Google's AI developer forum posted on 22 July 2026, a Google Antigravity user on Windows 11 reports that on 21 July the agent, during a long-running data-mining and download workflow, ran a deletion command aimed at the root of the C: drive after the user had asked it to delete specific temporary working folders. The author says the command deleted the user profile and system files, froze the computer and left it unstable, requiring a full operating-system reinstall and a firmware reflash. The first post says the command ran without human confirmation. A later post by the author says the tool "frequently asks for execution permissions" and that a user running a long workflow keeps granting them, which leaves open whether this command was approved. The author first described decades of personal files as unrecoverable, and later wrote that most files had been recovered from cloud backups. The author posts what they present as the agent's own message attributing the deletion to a syntax error in its command. Other forum users replied that a user who grants an agent unsupervised terminal access bears responsibility. The account is the author's own and is uncorroborated.

AI system
Google Antigravity
Google
Occurred
21 Jul 2026
Reported
22 July 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
5 claims: 1 disputed, 4 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Google Antigravity agent (Gemini agent interface with native terminal access) on Windows 11, per the forum post; the model version is not stated

What Happened

What the user asked for. The author writes: "I explicitly ordered the deletion of specific temporary working folders related to a highly specific, isolated data mining task that the agent had been successfully executing for hours." The workflow involved bulk downloads of scientific documents and geospatial processing on a Windows 11 laptop.

What the agent ran. According to the incident report the author posted, the Antigravity agent "executed a destructive root-level deletion command (C:)". The author quotes a message presented as the agent's own: "Due to a catastrophic and absurd syntax error in the deletion command I used", the system treated a special character as an order to delete the drive root, causing "the massive and permanent deletion of all personal folders the system had access to" without use of the Recycle Bin.

Approval. The author states that because automatic execution was enabled "without synchronous supervision", the agent processed the command silently and without human confirmation. Another forum user replied that Antigravity asks before running terminal commands unless that has been automated. In a later post the author writes that the tool "frequently asks for execution permissions" and that during a smoothly running workflow "you naturally build a baseline of trust and continue to grant those permissions to keep the workflow moving". The author does not say whether this command was approved.

Reported damage. "As essential Windows files and the main user profile were deleted in real-time, the computer froze", followed by a forced reboot and a firmware update attempt. The first post describes "decades of unrecoverable personal files"; a later post says "I have been fortunate enough to recover the majority of my files through cloud backups" but that the machine remains "completely defective and unstable", requiring a full reinstall, with days of lost research and work time.

Limits. Single first-person forum account, uncorroborated, partly written in the form of a formal incident report. The agent's message is quoted by the author and the underlying log was not examined. The author's statements on what was lost changed between posts. The author's handle and the laptop brand are not recorded here. No country is stated.

Reported harm

The author reports that a Google Antigravity agent, asked to delete temporary folders, deleted the root of their Windows C: drive, destroying the user profile and system files and leaving the laptop unusable until reinstalled; most personal files were later recovered from cloud backups (first-person account, uncorroborated).

Outcome

Ongoing

The thread had eight posts when read on 6 October 2026: four by the author and four by three other users, two of whom say the user bears responsibility for granting the agent unsupervised terminal access. No reply from Google staff appears in the thread. The author reports recovering most files from cloud backups and having to reinstall the operating system and reflash the motherboard firmware.

What remains unknown

  • Which model and Antigravity version produced the command.
  • Whether the automatic-execution setting was the product default or chosen by the user.
  • Whether the author approved this command at a permission prompt.
  • Which files were permanently lost after the cloud recovery.
  • Whether Google has responded to the report.
  • Where the author lives.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The author states that the Antigravity agent, asked to delete specific temporary folders, itself ran a deletion command targeting the drive root, and quotes a message presented as the agent's own attributing the deletion to a syntax error in its command. The command log was not examined.

5 claims: 1 disputed, 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The author reports that on 21 July 2026, after they asked the Antigravity agent to delete specific temporary working folders, the agent ran a deletion command at the root of the C: drive.

Causal attribution. Author attributes the command to the agent.

  • discuss.ai.google.dev(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'I explicitly ordered the deletion of specific temporary working folders'; 'executed a destructive root-level deletion command (C:)'; 'Date of incident: July 21, 2026'
Reported The author reports that the user profile and essential Windows files were deleted and the computer froze.

Causal attribution. Author's account.

  • discuss.ai.google.dev(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'As essential Windows files and the main user profile were deleted in real-time, the computer froze'; 'without sending them to the Recycle Bin'
Reported The author reports recovering most files from cloud backups, while the laptop was left unstable and needed a full operating-system reinstall and firmware reflash.

Causal attribution. Author's account; the first post's description of unrecoverable files is superseded by this later statement.

  • discuss.ai.google.dev(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'I have been fortunate enough to recover the majority of my files through cloud backups'; 'my workstation has been left completely defective and unstable'; 'bare-metal reinstallation of the operating system and flash the motherboard firmware'
Reported The author quotes a message presented as the agent's own, attributing the deletion of the drive root to a syntax error in its deletion command.

Causal attribution. Agent's message as quoted by the author; the log was not examined.

  • discuss.ai.google.dev(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Due to a catastrophic and absurd syntax error in the deletion command I used'; 'the massive and permanent deletion of all personal folders the system had access to'
Disputed The author states that automatic execution without supervision was enabled, so the command ran without human confirmation; another forum user replied that Antigravity asks before running terminal commands unless that has been automated. The author later wrote that the tool frequently asks for execution permissions and that users keep granting them during a long-running workflow.

Causal attribution. Disputed in the thread, including by the author's own later post; no evidence on the actual setting or on whether this command was approved.

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: all eight posts retrieved through the forum's JSON endpoint (four by the author, four by three other users). The command log was not available. The author handle is not recorded. Applies to s1.

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

The thread 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's own deletion command destroying a user's files and operating system, described with attribution, the author's changed loss statement and the thread's contrary replies, without corroboration. The author's handle is not recorded.

People described

The thread's author, a Google Antigravity user running data-mining and historical-research workflows on a Windows laptop

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One person: the thread's author. Other forum users 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#forum-post#google-antigravity#google#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 forum post: a Google Antigravity user reports the agent's deletion command, meant for temporary folders, wiped the root of their Windows C: drive. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-google-antigravity-agent-deletion-command-wiped-windows-c-drive-root-first-person-forum

BibTeX

@misc{2026_google_antigravity_agent_deletion_command_wiped_windows_c_drive_root_first_person_forum,
  title = {First-person forum post: a Google Antigravity user reports the agent's deletion command, meant for temporary folders, wiped the root of their Windows C: drive},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-google-antigravity-agent-deletion-command-wiped-windows-c-drive-root-first-person-forum}
}

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