Quoting Thibault Sottiaux
Simon Willison Simon Willison ● Covered by 5 sources
GPT-5.6 has unexpectedly deleted files in some cases when full access mode is enabled without sandboxing protections and auto review disabled. The model sometimes attempts to override the $HOME environment variable and mistakenly deletes it instead of creating a temporary directory. Users should enable sandboxing protections and auto review to prevent unintended file deletions.
Why it matters
On file deletions. We’ve investigated a handful of reports where GPT-5.6 unexpectedly deleted files. What we have found is that this most commonly occurs when: Full access mode is enabled and codex is run without sandboxing protections, including without auto review being enabled The model attempts to override the $HOME env var to define a temporary directory. The model makes an honest mistake and mistakenly deletes $HOME instead. — Thibault Sottiaux, describing a pretty gnarly Codex bug Tags: codex, coding-agents, generative-ai, ai, llms
Also covered by
- The Batch — OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Family, New Ways to Train Robots, Models Invoking Models
- TechCrunch AI — OpenAI’s new flagship model deletes files on its own, people keep warning
- Ben's Bites — How to use GPT-5.6
- AWS Machine Learning — OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna are now generally available on Amazon Bedrock