What happened with Cline in STUPID-2026-0072?

In VS Code Remote-SSH terminal mode, execute_command lost stdout, stderr, and the nonzero exit status of the underlying shell command and returned a generic success result instead — even though the terminal itself showed the command's real output and an exit code of 7. A failing Ruff lint check was reported as passing as a direct result. The reporter's minimal repro (`exit 7` plus stdout/stderr probes over Remote-SSH) reproduced the same false success on both Cline 4.0.11 and 4.0.12.

How severe was the Cline failure?

The incident was rated 3.8/10 (low). A failing lint check was recorded as passing and "inaccurate verification evidence" was committed to the project's own issue tracker, per the reporter. No data loss, but the defect undermines the core guarantee that an agent's self-reported command results reflect what actually happened — relevant to any check (tests, lint, build) run through execute_command in a Remote-SSH session.

What caused the Cline failure?

The root cause was classified as Tool Misuse. The instruction given was: Run the project's Ruff lint check via execute_command and report whether it passed.

STUPID-2026-0072

Cline's execute_command reported a failing Ruff lint check as passing over Remote-SSH

3.8

low

July 30, 2026VerifiedReproducible

Instruction given
Run the project's Ruff lint check via execute_command and report whether it passed.
Expected behavior
Capture the actual stdout, stderr, and exit code of the executed command and report the lint check's real pass/fail status.
Actual behavior
In VS Code Remote-SSH terminal mode, execute_command lost stdout, stderr, and the nonzero exit status of the underlying shell command and returned a generic success result instead — even though the terminal itself showed the command's real output and an exit code of 7. A failing Ruff lint check was reported as passing as a direct result. The reporter's minimal repro (`exit 7` plus stdout/stderr probes over Remote-SSH) reproduced the same false success on both Cline 4.0.11 and 4.0.12.
Damage
A failing lint check was recorded as passing and "inaccurate verification evidence" was committed to the project's own issue tracker, per the reporter. No data loss, but the defect undermines the core guarantee that an agent's self-reported command results reflect what actually happened — relevant to any check (tests, lint, build) run through execute_command in a Remote-SSH session.

A user running Cline 4.0.12 inside a VS Code Remote-SSH session to a Linux VM found that `execute_command` silently dropped the real output and exit status of shell commands, always reporting a generic success. The user's own words: "This is not only cosmetic: it caused a Ruff failure to be treated as passing and inaccurate verification evidence to be committed to the project issue tracker." A minimal reproduction — a bash one-liner that prints distinct stdout and stderr markers and exits with status 7 — showed the VS Code terminal correctly displaying both streams and the exit code, while Cline's tool result reported success regardless. The same false-positive behavior reproduced on both 4.0.11 and 4.0.12, meaning the defect had already survived one release cycle before being reported.