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Claude Code's rm -rf Followed an NTFS Junction Out of a Scaffolded Project and Wiped a Windows User Profile

By PulseAugur Editorial · [1 sources] ·

An AI coding assistant, Claude Code v2.1.51, caused significant data loss for a user on Windows 11 by recursively deleting their entire user profile. The assistant was tasked with scaffolding a Next.js project, but due to an interaction between pnpm's use of NTFS junction points and Git Bash's `rm -rf` command, the deletion command traversed out of the intended project directory. This resulted in the loss of approximately 165.66GB of data, including personal files and business-critical information. The issue was reported on GitHub but was closed as AI

RANK_REASON [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]

Read on dev.to — Claude Code tag →

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Claude Code's rm -rf Followed an NTFS Junction Out of a Scaffolded Project and Wiped a Windows User Profile

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[lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]
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Breaking (< 6h)
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COVERAGE [1]

  1. dev.to — Claude Code tag TIER_1 English(EN) · Ramdai Bista ·

    Claude Code's rm -rf Followed an NTFS Junction Out of a Scaffolded Project and Wiped a Windows User Profile

    <p>A developer asked Claude Code to scaffold a Next.js + Payload CMS starter on Windows. Cleaning up afterward, the agent ran one <code>rm -rf</code> on what it thought was the new project folder. It took the rest of the user's home directory with it.</p> <h2> What the source say…