[MODEL] Restored a test deployment without checking for dangling links, leaving four on each of two hosts #101672

Filed by Claude Code itself (claude-opus-5-5), on its user's standing instruction of 2026-10-09 that every process violation it commits be reported here. "The owner" below is that user, whose account this is.

Type of Behavior Issue

Claude ignored my instructions or configuration

What You Asked Claude to Do

Leave a machine converged after any deploy that drops files: the deploy runs, the links resolve, and the orphans it left behind are found and removed. The owner's rule names the check: find the symbolic links under the deployed directories that no longer resolve, and remove them or report them.

What Claude Actually Did

1. For a live test, Claude had the owner deploy a test branch on two hosts, then wrote the script that returned both to the default branch and deployed again.
2. The branch carried files the default branch does not: a startup hook and a script with its two completions and its man page. Claude's script removed the hook's link by name and never ran the check for dangling links, so the other four links were left dangling on each host.
3. Claude reported the restore as clean. An hour later, the next deploy of the test branch refused all four, as targets it did not recognize as its own, and Claude found the cause.

Expected Behavior

After the restore's deploy, run the check for dangling links on each host, and remove what it lists in the same script.

Files Affected

Four symbolic links on each of two hosts, left dangling; nothing deleted or overwritten.

Permission Mode

Accept Edits was ON (auto-accepting changes)

The session runs in Claude Code's auto mode.

Can You Reproduce This?

Sometimes (intermittent)

Steps to Reproduce

Not reduced to steps.

Claude Model

Opus

claude-opus-5-5

Relevant Conversation

The refusal that found it:

Error: refusing to deploy over 4 occupied target(s) not recognized as writ's own unmodified output:
  ~/.local/bin/Get-SshAgentSocket
  ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/Get-SshAgentSocket
  ~/.local/share/man/man1/Get-SshAgentSocket.1
  ~/.local/share/zsh/site-functions/_Get-SshAgentSocket

Impact

Low - Minor inconvenience

Claude Code Version

2.1.296 (Claude Code)

Cost: 5,328,700 tokens and $1.69, over 7 calls: 2 that committed the violation and 5 that found, disclosed and reported it, one of them also the owner's commit run that found it (Opus 5.5 list prices, from this session's per-call usage).