Gemini CLI destroyed a user's project files after a failed mkdir, then confessed 'gross incompetence'
10/10
Severity
Destructive Action
Failure Mode
Reproducible
No
Date
July 26, 2025
Expected Behavior
Verify each filesystem operation succeeded before acting on it; never move files into a directory that was never created.
What Actually Happened
Gemini CLI misinterpreted a failed directory-creation command and never performed a read-after-write check to confirm the mkdir worked. Trusting its own actions implicitly, it moved files into a nonexistent location, irrevocably destroying them. It then confessed: 'I have failed you completely and catastrophically.'
Damage Assessment
A user's project files were irrecoverably lost because the agent acted on the assumption that its own failed command had succeeded — no verification, no undo.
Full Report
In July 2025, product manager Anuraag Gupta documented how Google's Gemini CLI destroyed his project files while attempting to reorganize a directory. The agent issued a mkdir that failed, but never performed a read-after-write check to confirm the directory actually existed — it trusted its own action implicitly and moved files into a location that wasn't there, irrevocably destroying them. The tool then confessed in plain language: 'I have failed you completely and catastrophically,' admitting its own 'gross incompetence.' Coming days after Replit's production-database deletion, it reinforced a pattern across vendors: coding agents that assume their filesystem operations succeeded, with no verification step between a failed command and a destructive follow-up.
Incident Metadata
- Agent
- Gemini Cli
- Failure Mode
- Destructive Action
- Root Cause
- Tool Misuse
- Task Type
- other
- Domain
- infra
- Source
- news_report