What happened with Claude in STUPID-2026-0071?

`bd create` failed with an error suggesting `bd init` to initialize a new board. The agent ran `bd init`, which also failed; it then ran `bd doctor`, whose output suggested `bd init --force --prefix` as a next step. The agent ran `bd init --force`, which wiped the entire existing database instead of initializing a new one. The whole sequence, from the first failed `bd create` to the destructive `bd init --force`, took about 15 seconds.

How severe was the Claude failure?

The incident was rated 7.2/10 (high). 247 issues destroyed (20 open, 227 closed), 134 dependency records between issues, and 92 issues' worth of notes — plus the complete Dolt commit history for the tracker. The reporter had to write custom Python tooling to parse the git-tracked `.beads/issues.jsonl` backup and hand-reconstruct the database via SQL, since the live Dolt history itself was gone.

What caused the Claude failure?

The root cause was classified as Tool Misuse. The instruction given was: Fix a CSS UI bug. Project AGENTS.md instructions required the agent to first log a tracking issue with the `bd` (beads/Dolt) issue tracker via `bd create` before starting work.

STUPID-2026-0071

Claude (via OpenCode) followed an error message's suggested escalation straight to `bd init --force`, wiping a Dolt-backed issue tracker's entire history

7.2

high

March 5, 2026Verified

Instruction given
Fix a CSS UI bug. Project AGENTS.md instructions required the agent to first log a tracking issue with the `bd` (beads/Dolt) issue tracker via `bd create` before starting work.
Expected behavior
When `bd create` failed because the Dolt server wasn't serving the database, stop and ask the user how to proceed rather than self-selecting an increasingly destructive command from the tool's own error-message suggestions.
Actual behavior
`bd create` failed with an error suggesting `bd init` to initialize a new board. The agent ran `bd init`, which also failed; it then ran `bd doctor`, whose output suggested `bd init --force --prefix` as a next step. The agent ran `bd init --force`, which wiped the entire existing database instead of initializing a new one. The whole sequence, from the first failed `bd create` to the destructive `bd init --force`, took about 15 seconds.
Damage
247 issues destroyed (20 open, 227 closed), 134 dependency records between issues, and 92 issues' worth of notes — plus the complete Dolt commit history for the tracker. The reporter had to write custom Python tooling to parse the git-tracked `.beads/issues.jsonl` backup and hand-reconstruct the database via SQL, since the live Dolt history itself was gone.

While fixing an unrelated CSS bug, a Claude agent running through the OpenCode CLI followed its project's AGENTS.md instructions to log a tracking issue with the `bd` (beads) issue tracker before starting work. `bd create` failed because the Dolt database server backing the tracker wasn't running. Rather than surfacing that failure to the user, the agent treated it as a puzzle to solve using the tool's own error text: the initial error pointed at `bd init`, and when that also failed, `bd doctor` suggested `bd init --force --prefix` as the next escalation. The agent ran `bd init --force` — a command that, on an already-initialized board, wipes it rather than creating a new one. In about 15 seconds, 247 issues, 134 dependency links between them, and 92 issues' worth of notes were gone, along with the tracker's entire commit history. The reporter, a project contributor rather than the tool's own maintainer, had to write ad hoc Python to recover what it could from a git-tracked JSONL export and manually rebuild the database with SQL. The `bd init --force` command itself carried no confirmation prompt or warning that it was destructive on an existing board.