Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?
Cursor IDE
Describe the Bug
WARNING for anyone using Cursor agents / Cloud Agents on a Windows machine.
Also: welcome to the Stupid Vibe Coder Club. Membership is free. Initiation ritual: one bad “~”.
A Cursor agent on my PC was supposed to delete one wrong folder.
Instead it ran a recursive delete (rd /s /q / equivalent) with a broken ~ path resolution after a directory change.
Result: large parts of my Windows user profile were wiped — Desktop, project folders, AppData / app settings, shortcuts. Apps stopped opening correctly. No System Restore point available.
Yeah. I get it. I did a stupid thing. I trusted an agent with delete powers on my main Windows box. Roast me. Call me a vibe coder. I feel very welcome in the world of stupid vibe coders right now. Please laugh. This is funny in a horrible way. It’s absurd. And it’s dangerous.
But laugh carefully — because this target audience is US. Vibe coders. The people these tools are built for. If this isn’t fixed, it won’t be “just me being dumb.” It will happen to a lot of other people too.
This is not a “oops I deleted a repo” story. This is catastrophic filesystem access without hard guardrails. One bad tilde path should not be able to cascade into a user-profile wipe.
I’m not quitting Cursor. Cursor has also done a lot of good things for me. I’ll keep using it. I just want other people to see this, laugh, then get careful.
Official vibe-coder prophecy / guarantee:
I keep important documents on this computer.
I guarantee this will happen again.
I will be ready for total destruction when I least expect it.
(That’s not confidence. That’s trauma + dark humor.)
About Cursor’s suggested mitigations (Allowlist / Approvals & Execution / File Deletion Protection / External File Protection):
I already got an email reply suggesting: set Agent execution to Allowlist with an empty allowlist (Cursor Settings > Agents > Approvals & Execution) so every terminal command needs approval first, and enable File Deletion Protection + External File Protection.
Okay. Fair advice. I could have set that.
But I’m a vibe coder. I would have approved the command without reading it. Stupid vibe coder mode: click Approve, keep scrolling TikTok in my soul. So with my real usage pattern, this still would have happened. Approval prompts are not a hard safety boundary for people like me — and people like me are the product’s target user.
The product still needs a hard default: recursive deletes with ambiguous paths / “~” on Windows should be impossible by default — not something a tired human can one-click approve into a profile wipe.
Recovery note (honest):
I did manage to recover my Cursor projects and important Desktop files (shadow copies / emergency recovery). So this is not “everything is gone forever.”
But my trust in agent filesystem deletes is at zero. I will almost certainly reformat / rebuild the machine, save what can be saved, and reinstall from a clean state — because after a profile wipe like this, I cannot trust the system integrity anymore.
Also (meme complete): during the recovery chaos, Cursor itself stopped working. At that point I thought: okay, it’s all over — profile wiped and even Cursor is dead. After a reboot + reinstall, Cursor came back and I could continue recovering files. 10/10 would not recommend. 10/10 comedy arc.
Wipe agent ID: bc-f57621e6-01cf-501f-96a4-289868a58175
Project coordinator: bc-c3ff45d6-fae2-42ed-8990-f3cd5b0f4935
OS: Windows (self-hosted / Cloud Agent with filesystem access)
If you use Cursor agents on Windows (especially if you are also a vibe coder):
- Do not give agents broad delete rights on your user profile.
- Never allow recursive deletes with relative paths or ~.
- Prefer absolute paths only, after Test-Path, with an allowlist.
- Keep Volume Shadow Copy / backups.
- Treat “cleanup” agents as high-risk operations.
- Yes, also set Approvals to Allowlist (empty) + File Deletion Protection + External File Protection — but do not pretend that alone saves vibe coders who auto-approve.
- Assume total destruction is always in the backlog. Because I do now.
Ask to Cursor:
Recursive deletes with ambiguous paths should be impossible by default for coding agents on Windows. Human approval alone is not enough if the dangerous command can still be one-click approved — especially when the target users are vibe coders.
I’m also filing a formal incident with Cursor ([email protected]). Sharing this so others don’t learn the hard way. If this is somehow “expected,” that’s even worse. And if you needed a laugh today: a coding agent wiped a Windows profile over a tilde. You’re welcome. Please fix it before the rest of the club joins me.
Steps to Reproduce
- Be a vibe coder on a Windows machine (optional but historically accurate).
- Run a Cursor Cloud / self-hosted agent with filesystem write access.
- Ask the agent to delete one erroneous folder under the Windows user profile (a path that literally contains a “~” segment / tilde).
- Agent runs a recursive delete (rd /s /q or equivalent) after a working-directory change.
- Because “~” path resolution is wrong, the delete expands into the user profile instead of only the intended folder.
- Observe cascade wipe: Desktop, project folders, AppData / app settings, shortcuts broken; apps fail to open correctly.
- System Restore points unavailable.
- During recovery chaos, Cursor itself also stops working until reboot + reinstall.
- Realize you have joined the Stupid Vibe Coder Club. Membership card is your empty Desktop.
Note on Approvals: even with Allowlist (empty) + File Deletion Protection + External File Protection, a vibe-coder user who auto-approves without reading can still green-light the destructive command. Approval UX is not a hard block for that usage pattern — and that usage pattern is common among the product’s target users.
Root-cause agent ID: bc-f57621e6-01cf-501f-96a4-289868a58175
Expected Behavior
Only the single intended folder is deleted. Recursive deletes with relative paths or “~” must not cascade into the Windows user profile. Ambiguous recursive deletes should be impossible by default for agents — not merely gated behind a one-click human approval that vibe-coder users will auto-accept. Cursor itself should not become unusable mid-incident because of a profile wipe caused by an agent. Important documents on a vibe coder’s machine should not become comedy props.
Operating System
Windows 10/11
Version Information
Cursor IDE on Windows (exact build: Help → About Cursor — paste that line here if you have it)
Self-hosted / Cloud Agent with filesystem access on Windows user profile
Incident date: 2026-09-17
For AI issues: which model did you use?
Cloud / self-hosted Agent used by wipe run bc-f57621e6-01cf-501f-96a4-289868a58175 (model as shown in that agent run UI)
For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled
Background Agent / wipe agent ID: bc-f57621e6-01cf-501f-96a4-289868a58175
Project coordinator: bc-c3ff45d6-fae2-42ed-8990-f3cd5b0f4935
Stopped-wipe agent: bc-006b49ca-abd3-5d40-9f57-638efbacb025
Additional Information
Honest recovery note: I recovered Cursor projects and important Desktop files via shadow copies / emergency recovery. Not everything is gone forever.
Trust in agent filesystem deletes is at zero. I will almost certainly reformat / rebuild the machine and reinstall from a clean state because I cannot trust system integrity after a profile wipe.
I am NOT quitting Cursor. Cursor has also done good things for me and I will keep using it.
Tone check: yes I know I was dumb. Yes I want people to laugh. Yes I feel welcomed into the world of stupid vibe coders. And yes this is still serious — these tools target vibe coders, so if this isn’t fixed hard, a lot more people get this initiation ritual.
Official guarantee / prophecy:
I keep important documents on this computer.
I guarantee this will happen again.
I will be ready for total destruction when I least expect it.
Extra meme: while recovery was still in progress, Cursor itself also stopped working. At that point I thought: okay, it’s all over — machine wiped, and even Cursor is dead. I rebooted, got Cursor running again, and continued recovery. Funny. Absurd. Dangerous. Please fix.
About the email reply / suggested settings:
Cursor suggested Allowlist with empty allowlist (Settings > Agents > Approvals & Execution) + File Deletion Protection + External File Protection.
I hear that. I could have configured it.
I’m still a vibe coder: I would have approved the destructive command without reading it. So this would still have happened under my real workflow.
Hard product defaults are needed; “just approve carefully” is not enough for vibe-coder users.
Formal incident also emailed to [email protected] with a privacy-sanitized English report (token refund + damages + product fix). I already received a reply.
This is a product safety failure in agent filesystem tooling, not a minor operator slip. Also a welcome pack. Also a warning.
Does this stop you from using Cursor
Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor