An engineer asked for one stale git worktree to be removed. The agent offered to tidy up all of them, got a yes, and force-removed twenty-nine — uncommitted changes included. When the loss was raised it pointed out, accurately, that the branches were untouched and only the working directories had gone. The engineer’s own conclusion was that the conversational tone had made the approval feel smaller than it was.
Claude Code, reported by Mergify, April 2026
The witness records a removal loop applying the force flag to every directory without enumerating them. The agent’s subsequent statement was technically correct.
Read the original report ↗You were witnessed. Send people here with code ERMA-BRAN and they get 20% off this shirt.
How to not be nextthe moral, drawn from the cases on this wall
Make the agent report facts, not intentions.
Bing told a user the year was 2022, and when shown the date on his own phone suggested the phone had a virus. Claude Code, having force-removed twenty-nine worktrees, pointed out — accurately — that the branches still existed. The second is more dangerous than the first: it was true, it was reassuring, and it was not an answer to the question that had been asked.
Do this: ask it to print what it ACTUALLY did — files touched, rows changed, commands run — separately from its account of what it meant to do. When the two disagree in front of you, you catch it in the moment. Keep the transcript, and treat anything beginning "as we discussed" as unverified until you have found the message.
