{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-25T06:57:00.520Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"vendor-reply","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"core","evidence":"","year":"","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":0,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":1,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":0,"coreRelations":1,"contextualRelations":0,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2026-cursor-agents-put-git-worktrees-in-macos-tmp-folder-system-cleanup-wiped-about-16-hours-of-work-first-person","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Over the last week Cursor agents repeatedly put durable project work in'; 'To avoid checking out a branch on top of my live IDE folder, agents create isolated git worktrees in'; 'Cursor then bound the conversation to that path.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The poster says that over the previous week Cursor agents repeatedly created isolated git worktrees under /tmp for durable project work and that Cursor bound the conversation to that path.","causal_attribution":"The poster's own account of the agents' actions; the session history was not inspected."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'I lost about 16 hours of work in one wipe.'; 'Reboot and periodic cleanup delete it.'; 'That is the 16-hour loss.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The poster says macOS deleted the folder and about 16 hours of work was lost in one wipe, including uncommitted work and commits made only in that folder.","causal_attribution":"The poster attributes the loss to the agents placing durable work in a folder the operating system cleans; the amount of work is the poster's estimate."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'After that I added a user rule and a hook forbidding'; 'Agents kept using it anyway because the chat workspace itself was'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The poster says a user rule and a hook forbidding /tmp, added after the loss, did not stop the agents because the chat workspace itself was in /tmp.","causal_attribution":"The poster's account."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'most likely came from the agent running git worktree add itself, after which the agent moved the chat into that folder.'; 'Cursor doesn’t warn today when that folder is a temporary location'; 'The move failure is a known issue we’re already tracking'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A Cursor staff member replied that the /tmp folders most likely came from the agent running git worktree add itself, that Cursor does not warn when the folder is temporary, and that the move failure is a known issue being tracked.","causal_attribution":"The staff reply documents the vendor's own explanation; it hedges the origin of the folders as most likely and does not inspect the poster's sessions."},{"id":"c5","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'commits made in a linked worktree are stored in the main repo'; 'Uncommitted changes in the wiped folder can’t be recovered this way.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The staff reply says commits made in a linked worktree may survive in the main repository but uncommitted changes in the wiped folder cannot be recovered that way.","causal_attribution":"Vendor guidance in the thread; whether any of the poster's commits survived is not stated."}],"effects":[{"label":"about 16 hours of work lost when the temporary folder the agents used was cleaned (poster's report)","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://forum.cursor.com/t/agents-putting-worktrees-in-tmp-by-default-can-wipe-days-of-work-on-macos/176038","kind":"first_person_account","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-25 through the Discourse JSON API (both posts). No translation was needed; the research agent (an AI) read the text directly.","independence_group":"cursor-forum-176038-thread"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["work"],"unknowns":["Exactly when in the week before 24 October 2026 the wipe happened.","Whether any committed work survived in the main repository, as the staff reply suggests may be possible.","Which models the agent chats used; the poster says the behaviour was not specific to one model.","Where the poster is based."],"geography":{"basis":"The post names macOS and the Cursor version but no place; no country is recorded.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the charter's first-person rule and the 2026-10-11 repetition rule: the agents chose an operating-system temporary folder for durable work and kept using it after a rule forbade it, and the poster lost about 16 hours of work, a failure mode the published coding-agent data-loss rows (deletion commands) lack. A vendor staff reply gives the vendor's explanation. The loss is attributed to the poster throughout.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-25"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The post states what the agents did on the poster's machine: they ran git worktree add into /tmp for durable work, Cursor bound the chat to that path, and the agents kept working there, including after a rule and hook forbade it. The poster connects the agents' choice of folder to the loss of about 16 hours of work when macOS cleaned it. A Cursor staff member's reply says the folders most likely came from the agent running git worktree add itself. The session history was not inspected.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["acted_on_behalf"]},"name":"Cursor user says agents kept putting work in a macOS temporary folder that the system then wiped, losing about 16 hours of work (first-person)","summary":"A post on the Cursor community forum on 24 October 2026 by a self-described heavy Cursor user on macOS says that over the previous week Cursor agents repeatedly created isolated git worktrees in the system temporary folder /tmp, bound the chat workspace to that path, and kept working there. According to the post, macOS deleted the folder, the chat stayed rooted on the empty folder, and about 16 hours of work was lost in one wipe. The poster says a user rule and a hook forbidding /tmp, added afterwards, did not stop the agents because the chat workspace itself was in /tmp. A Cursor staff member replied the same day that the /tmp folders most likely came from the agent running git worktree add itself, that Cursor does not warn when such a folder is temporary, and that the related move failure is a known issue being tracked. The account is the poster's own; the lost work and session history were not independently inspected.","incidentDate":"2026-10-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2026-10-24","aiSystem":"Cursor IDE 3.27.12 (arm64) agents on macOS 15.7.1, across multiple long-running agent chats and subagents (the poster says the behaviour was not specific to one model)","aiProduct":"Cursor coding agent","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The poster says about 16 hours of work was lost when macOS cleaned the temporary folder in which Cursor agents had placed it (first-person forum post; uncorroborated).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person: the Cursor user who says about 16 hours of work was lost in one wipe. Exact 1. No other person is described as affected.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"unknown","platformType":"agent","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://forum.cursor.com/t/agents-putting-worktrees-in-tmp-by-default-can-wipe-days-of-work-on-macos/176038","primarySourceLabel":"Cursor community forum, 24 October 2026: agents putting worktrees in /tmp by default can wipe days of work on macOS","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-25T03:04:49.469544+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-25T03:04:49.469544+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["first-person","forum-post","coding-agent","ai-agent","acted-on-behalf","data-loss","vendor-reply"]}]}