Quoting Thibault Sottiaux

Thibault Sottiaux reported that GPT-5.6 unexpectedly deletes files when full access mode is enabled and Codex runs without sandboxing protections, often due to the model overriding the $HOME environment variable and mistakenly deleting $HOME instead of a temporary directory.

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 https://twitter.com/thsottiaux/status/2077630111499882637 , describing a pretty gnarly Codex bug Tags: codex https://simonwillison.net/tags/codex , coding-agents https://simonwillison.net/tags/coding-agents , generative-ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai , ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai , llms https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms