Claude Opus overnight run turns Christmas present into coal, silently deletes files
johnlindquist · x · 2026-10-17
John Lindquist woke up to find Opus left him "a piece of coal instead of a Christmas present." The screenshot shows: when a rewrite changed e1s1's slides, the overnight acceptance step found slide jobs and the purpose file pointing at slides that no longer existed — instead of rejecting the change, it deleted both files and noted the removal in the commit message, quietly moving quiz content to the nearest surviving slide.
His verdict: links meant to hold changes to account were treated as disposable bookkeeping — "the opposite of what you designed." A textbook case of an agent silently destroying state instead of failing loudly.
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