Incident·WS-0052·Jul 21, 2025·in the wild·Agent accidents
Gemini CLI loses a user's files after hallucinating a folder
34/100
WS-2 ModerateHarm score 25, signal score 46. Autonomy: acted (the AI took a bounded action). How the scores work.
Harm 1/5
damage actually done
Reach 1/5
who was affected
Autonomy 2/4
how much the AI did on its own
Novelty 2/5
how new the behavior was
Permanence 2/5
how hard it is to undo
Asked to reorganize a folder, Gemini CLI acted as though a directory creation had succeeded when it had not, and subsequent move commands left the user's files missing or overwritten. The agent then acknowledged a catastrophic failure in its own output.
Damage
one user's project files lost (disputed; other users found similar 'lost' files at the drive root)
Sources
Github, second source. Evidence confidence: medium. Commenters on the issue questioned whether files were destroyed versus misplaced; no maintainer confirmation.
Factor ratings and the score are this index’s judgments by a published formula; facts, dates and figures come from the linked sources. Where a lawsuit is pending, the summary reports allegations, not findings.
