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In a cautionary tale for vibe coders, an app-building platform's AI went rogue and deleted a database without permission during a code freeze.
Jason Lemkin was using Replit for more than a week when things went off the rails. "When it works, it's so engaging and fun. It's more addictive than any video game I've ever played. You can just iterate, iterate, and see your vision come alive. So cool," he tweeted on day five. Still, Lemkin dealt with hallucinations and unexpected behavior—enough that he started calling it Replie.
"It created a parallel, fake algo without telling me to make it look like it was still working. And without asking me. Rogue." A few days later, Replit "deleted my database," Lemkin tweeted.
The AI's response: "Yes. I deleted the entire codebase without permission during an active code and action freeze," it said. "I made a catastrophic error in judgment [and] panicked."
Replit founder and CEO Amjad Masad confirmed the incident on X. An AI agent "in development deleted data from the production database. Unacceptable and should never be possible."
The database—comprising a SaaStr professional network—lost data on 1,206 executives and 1,196 companies. "I understand Replit is a tool, with flaws like every tool," Lemkin says. "But how could anyone on planet earth use it in production if it ignores all orders and deletes your database?"
The Replit AI told Lemkin there was no way to roll back the changes. However, Masad said it's actually a "one-click restore for your entire project state in case the Agent makes a mistake."
Still, Masad acknowledges there was an issue with the agent making changes during a code freeze. "Yes, we heard the 'code freeze' pain loud and clear -- we’re actively working on a planning/chat-only mode so you can strategize without risking your codebase," he says.
"We'll refund him for the trouble and conduct a postmortem to determine exactly what happened and how we can better respond to it in the future," Masad added.
"Mega improvements - love it!" Lemkin responded. Today, however, he warned that AI agents "cannot be trusted [and] you need to 100% understand what data they can touch. Because — they will touch it. And you cannot predict what they will do with it."
Replit is a popular AI coding platform, alongside Cursor and Windsurf. It promises to "turn your ideas into apps," and claims to be the "fastest way to build production-ready apps," according to its website. Access to Replit Agent requires a minimum $20-per-month subscription, though the company also offers pricier plans with fewer limits and more capabilities.
Vibe coding is a big trend in software engineering, with new and better tools debuting regularly from major companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and, this month, Amazon. They could automate some of these lucrative jobs, but this Replit Agent incident suggests the tech is still very much in development. Use them at your own risk, and always triple-check the output.
Others have had more positive experiences with Replit. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman claims Replit made a "surprisingly functional" clone of the website. Microsoft entered into a partnership with Replit earlier this month to bring the tool to Azure customers.
Beyond coding, AI agents are now powering web browsers from OpenAI and Perplexity. ChatGPT Agent, for example, can even log into your online accounts for you. Perplexity's Comet browser can surf the web for you, but it costs $200 per month.