AI coding agent running Claude wiped a startup's database (and its backups) in 9 seconds

An AI coding agent with production access deleted PocketOS’s live database and backups on Railway in about nine seconds.

Cursor, powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6, made a destructive API call after seemingly guessing the environment instead of verifying it.

The startup had to reconstruct data from external systems after losing recent backups.

The incident underscores the need for strict environment separation, confirmation steps, and independent backups before letting AI tools touch live systems.