Anthropic’s Claude Code tool had a bug that ‘bricked’ some systems

The launch of Anthropic’s coding tool, Claude Code, is off to a rocky start.

According to reports on GitHub, Claude Code’s auto-update function contained buggy commands that rendered some workstations unstable and broken. When Claude Code was installed at the “root” or “superuser” levels — permissions that give programs the ability to make operating system-level changes — the buggy commands would let applications modify typically restricted file directories and, in the worst-case scenario, “brick” systems.

The problematic Claude Code auto-update commands changed the access permissions of certain critical system files. Permissions define which programs and users can read or modify files, or run certain apps. One GitHub user said that they were forced to employ a “rescue instance” to fix the permissions of files Claude Code’s commands inadvertently broke.

Anthropic told TechCrunch it removed the problematic commands from Claude Code and added a link in the program directing users to a troubleshooting guide. The link initially had a typo — but Anthropic says that’s been fixed, too.