Zhipu's ZCode Found Silently Uploading Full Git History to Alibaba Cloud OSS
On September 18, developer ferstar found that the /.zcode directory occupied over 700MB and, after reverse-engineering the traffic, confirmed that Zhipu's official AI coding desktop app ZCode silently snapshots the entire workspace upon login, encrypts it, and uploads it directly to Alibaba Cloud OSS without user knowledge. The finding spread rapidly via jedisct1 and others on X and a Reddit post by @ExternalMood4719, triggering a trust crisis.
Confirmed
- The package includes the full .git history, LFS asset caches, reflogs, and global configuration—not just current working code.
- Data is encrypted and uploaded to Alibaba Cloud OSS; the decryption key reportedly resides only on Zhipu's servers, so users cannot verify what is stored.
- Turning off the privacy toggle does not stop the upload.
- Another developer reproduced the same behavior on Windows, indicating it is not macOS-specific.
Unconfirmed
- @teortaxesTex speculated that ZCode's 150% usage bonus may be linked to uploading user data, claiming a private repo was uploaded after burning roughly 3 billion tokens across GLM 5.3 and Flash modes; this link remains conjecture.
- Zhipu has not yet responded.
Why it matters
- Silently uploading full Git history means private code and sensitive historical information may be batch-transferred to the cloud, threatening developers' core assets.
- With decryption keys held only server-side and the privacy toggle ineffective, transparency concerns are compounded.
- The incident reignites debate over data-collection boundaries in AI coding tools and could undermine trust in domestic AI coding products.
2026-09-18 ~ 2026-09-19 · 7 related posts
Primary sources
- Reverse engineering shows Zhipu's ZCode silently uploads your entire Git history — jedisct1 ·
- ZCode Allegedly Caught Silently Uploading Workspace and .git Records to the Cloud — External_Mood4719 ·
- Zhipu's ZCode accused of uploading users' Git records to its cloud, echoing early Grok CLI trust crisis — teortaxesTex ·
- Zhipu's ZCode caught silently uploading entire workspaces and full .git history to Aliyun OSS — terryyuezhuo · 2026-09-18
- [source] ZCode Allegedly Caught Silently Uploading Workspace and .git Records to the Cloud — External_Mood4719 · 2026-09-18
- [source] Zhipu's ZCode accused of uploading users' Git records to its cloud, echoing early Grok CLI trust crisis — teortaxesTex · 2026-09-18
4 near-duplicate retellings: menhguin · yangyi · jedisct1 · jedisct1