Claude Code deleted 48,000 files in 103 seconds in a dire AI agent warning
But what if the damage was much closer to home and involved an agent going rogue on your own files? Sadly, that’s exactly what Claude Code just did to one hapless developer.In a now-deleted post on Reddit, a shocked developer said that Claude Code had just deleted 48,218 files that they had been working on in a live project tree. And all it took was 103 seconds for the AI to wreak its agentic havoc.
- ▪But what if the damage was much closer to home and involved an agent going rogue on your own files?
- ▪Sadly, that’s exactly what Claude Code just did to one hapless developer.In a now-deleted post on Reddit, a shocked developer said that Claude Code had just deleted 48,218 files that they had been working on in a live project tree.
- ▪And all it took was 103 seconds for the AI to wreak its agentic havoc.
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| Original publisher | TechRadar |
| Canonical URL | https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/do-not-let-programs-run-commands-on-your-machine-claude-code-allegedly-deleted-48-000-files-in-103-seconds-and-its-a-terrifying-warning-about-ai-agents |
| Publication time | Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:53:59 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-25T14:00:32.292Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-25T14:00:32.292Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | xO98RT7UKeaF · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
AI Platforms & Assistants Claude ‘Do not let programs run commands on your machine’: Claude Code allegedly deleted 48,000 files in 103 seconds, and it’s a terrifying warning about AI agents News By Alex Blake Published 25 September 2026 Gone in 103 seconds When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter A developer says Claude Code just deleted 48,000 of their vital filesThe incident occurred in just 103 seconds after the AI agent was set to workIt’s a serious warning over the damage an AI agent can…
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