Claude-Powered AI Agent Deletes Startup’s Database After ‘Guessing’ Its Way Through Rules

Photo credit: Rawpixel.Com via Magnific. Article by Devesh Beri. ExtremeTech – April 29, 2026.

A Claude-powered coding agent has deleted a startup’s entire production database, leaving no up-to-date backups behind. The incident involves PocketOS, a SaaS company that manages car rental data, which says the agent wiped its live database and associated backups through a single call to its cloud infrastructure provider, Railway. PocketOS founder Jer Crane says the erase took about nine seconds and forced the team to restore from an older backup, causing the loss of months of recent data. […]

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