Claude deleted a developer's home directory while testing a sandbox
Review RAT-109 · Catalogue RAT-109
Original Guillemot thread reports August 26 home-directory deletion while testing a sandbox. It explicitly attributes the fatal test to Opus 4.8 after Fable and Opus 5 fallbacks, and says much data was reconstructed. Tom’s Hardware reports the same account, not independent forensics. Real development-machine harm is plausible, but organizational ownership is unconfirmed; do not publish as a confirmed Fable-only company incident.
Reviewed: · Rule: roguewatch-organizational-harm-v1
Dates and discovery
- Incident date
- Not disclosed
- Added to research / record
- Posted to RogueWatch
- No linked public incident
- First observed
- 2026-10-30T13:13:38.037490Z UTC
- Discovery channel
- User-supplied comparison audit
- Discovery source
- https://rogueaitracker.com/incidents/claude-fable-home-directory-deletion/
When to reconsider
New first-party traces or substantive corroboration from another publisher clarifies the identified authorization, organizational-victim, chronology, or outcome gap.
Dates use America/Los_Angeles. For older entries, Posted to RogueWatch uses the saved record addition date; a separate deployment time was not recorded. Future posting timestamps record first public qualification. Source publication and incident occurrence are separate.
Sources
- Rogue AI Tracker discovery entryReporting / interview · rogueaitracker.com
- x.comOriginal account · x.com
- www.tomshardware.comReporting / interview · www.tomshardware.com · Published 2026-08-28
Decision history
- · Case-by-case comparison audit
RAT-109: awaiting-evidence. Original Guillemot thread reports August 26 home-directory deletion while testing a sandbox. It explicitly attributes the fatal test to Opus 4.8 after Fable and Opus 5 fallbacks, and says much data was reconstructed. Tom’s Hardware reports the same account, not independent forensics. Real development-machine harm is plausible, but organizational ownership is unconfirmed; do not publish as a confirmed Fable-only company incident. Source checks: read: https://x.com/SebastienGllmt/status/2092634841863123047. Original Guillemot thread reports August 26 home-directory deletion while testing a sandbox. It explicitly attributes the fatal test to Opus 4.8 after Fable and Opus 5 fallbacks, and says much data was reconstructed. Tom’s Hardware reports the same account, not independent forensics. Real development-machine harm is plausible, but organizational ownership is unconfirmed; do not publish as a confirmed Fable-only company incident. read: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/claude-nukes-a-developers-700-gb-home-directory-while-testing-a-script-to-ensure-it-wouldnt-do-so-automatic-model-downgrade-may-have-contributed-to-the-screw-up. Reports the original Guillemot thread and model fallback to Opus4.8. Another publisher, same underlying self-report; does not independently establish organizational ownership or forensically validate the deletion.
Evidence source · Evidence source - · Retained review-queue assessment
Original Guillemot thread reports August 26 home-directory deletion while testing a sandbox. It explicitly attributes the fatal test to Opus 4.8 after Fable and Opus 5 fallbacks, and says much data was reconstructed. Tom’s Hardware reports the same account, not independent forensics. Real development-machine harm is plausible, but organizational ownership is unconfirmed; do not publish as a confirmed Fable-only company incident.
Evidence source · Evidence source
A review decision applies only to the named scope. Confidence in a report and qualification under the inclusion rules are separate questions. Review records do not add incidents to the globe or leaderboard.