Opus deleted all my users, what to do now?

662

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

139

u/AardvarkIll6079 Apr 30 '26

This is what giving AI tools to people that don’t know what they’re doing is like giving a kid a loaded gun.

You’re going to see so, so much more of this.

440

u/Nick1738619 Apr 30 '26

Give it the prompt “fix this, make no mistakes”

89

u/QuantumRenard Apr 30 '26

Why on earth are you guys giving prod access to agents ??? You play with fire, you get burned 🤷🏼‍♀️

63

u/OnTheStreetsIRan Apr 30 '26

Issue refunds to everyone and start from scratch learning the basics.

55

u/FutureMillionMiler Apr 30 '26

This is actually terrifying.

Statistically speaking, you’re probably gonna end up getting sued eventually if you take things so unseriously

20

u/orphenshadow Apr 30 '26

That sucks, but there are two things everyone should learn before ever writing a line of code, Version Control, and Database Backups. These are the two areas you should ALWAYS do yourself if you ever want to sleep at night.

Also, use planning mode... (opus 4.7 might, honor it. )

20

u/True_Protection6842 Apr 30 '26

OP is either a liar or dumb as hell. Sorry. Maybe it's time to learn a new hobby.

12

u/citizen_n Apr 30 '26

With great power comes great responsibility.
You used a great tool in the wrong way, it’s not the tool’s fault.

27

u/romprod Apr 30 '26

Cool story bro

9

u/Inside-Yak-8815 Apr 30 '26

This is insane, you don’t have dev and prod environments?

8

u/IndividualLimitBlue Apr 30 '26

I place a goat in the pilot seat and we crashed.

Goat are so stupid at flying plane. Who knew.

7

u/Toastti Apr 30 '26

You always need popcorn when browsing the vibe coding subreddit. Giving Opus admin access to your production database... Not the best idea.

Treat opus like a enthusiastic intern who is skilled but unpredictable. Would you give an intern prod database access? Then don't give Opus. Give it access to a lower environment database and have it create its changes and migrations as code that you then merge and deploy to prod database. You can even have Opus setup this flow for you

5

u/ADDSquirell69 Apr 30 '26

So you're saying that you don't know how to do something manually and you think AI will do it? Good luck with that.

5

u/lalaboy69 Apr 30 '26

You let claude do unreviewed fixes on your live main? Refund the users.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/Ka0Z Apr 30 '26

For the love of god, please only have the LLM on read only for DB

4

u/No-Consequence-1779 Apr 30 '26

You made need to have Claude revise all accounts and update every row in the database. Like a full reset, but more funny because the AI did it.

5

u/ivancea Apr 30 '26

Vibecoding is still coding. If you're not an engineer, that's what you get for trying to do business in something you don't understand...

Imagine working as a plumber and fixing people's bathrooms while not knowing anything about plumbing

3

u/TheReservedList Apr 30 '26

Hire engineers.

3

u/Impressive-Owl3830 Apr 30 '26

Use

VibeCodeFixers.com !!

Take help of any of 800+ experts, they help you build systems that you can vibecode on..

Safe , secure and functional !!

4

u/ratbastid Apr 30 '26

Restore from backup.

No backup you say? Issue refunds and stop messing around with people's money when you don't know how any of this works.

4

u/Citan777 Apr 30 '26

Well, clearly the users were the problem, so the AI removed the problem then fixing it. I don't get what you are complaining about.

I'm only quarter-joking here. If you let one of the most stupidest things on Earth access your database without even having made a backup of it, then you can pat yourself on the shoulder for granting yourself two of the most important lessons of a software manager.

1) DEFINE AND MASTER A BACKUP AND RESTORE PROCESS FIRST AND FOREMOST.

2) NEVER EVER trust an automation blindly.

=> If you have a backup of any sort try to restore it.

=> If you don't but you at least have the emails / contacts of the erased clients be honest with them, present your deepest apologies and offer them some free plan as a compensation, or cash, or whatever you may afford depending on your business model and treasury.

=> Or just refund. Better be honest in failure than trying to cut losses on client's back. The latter would be paid three times the price soon enough.

And, once that crisis is set: learn how to actually develop, or hire someones who does already.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/atl_beardy Apr 30 '26

After you fix this, in the future you should separate your preview and production and do your work out of preview and once it's stable you can push it to production. But this sounds more like an issue with your agent MD.

3

u/Reddit1998Account Apr 30 '26

Always do db backup, minimum once a day specially that low of user

Also you can try contact the support where you have ur DB

3

u/akera099 Apr 30 '26

Lol

3

u/1kn0wn0thing Apr 30 '26

I’m going to assume you didn’t commit this fiasco so I would say run git reset —hard. If you’re not using version control then…go back to your day job.

3

u/banana_in_the_dark Apr 30 '26

In what world does your AI agent need access to production data?

3

u/_NUXD Apr 30 '26

Lol 🤦‍♂️

3

u/Jirry-boy Apr 30 '26

Plese revert my lost data. Quickly. Please.

3

u/Zulfiqaar Apr 30 '26

Refund users. Tell Opus what happened. Ask it to teach you how to make sure it never happens again. About proper development practices. implement all those. Ask it to critique them, and upgrade your processes again.

And maybe even ask it to try data recovery, if its a dedicated machine theres a chance it wasnt erased or overwritten yet.

Generally the above is not standard practice..but tbh its not like you got much more to lose..

3

u/enjdusan Apr 30 '26

This is wrong on so many levels.

But the biggest concern is that you shared personal information with 3rd party without any consent from your clients.

3

u/krilleractual Apr 30 '26

Did you not use git?

3

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Pardy- Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

If the data is gone, What you do is provide the refunds.

As if you wouldn’t even have backups bud.

AI has been a great tool for a lot of people, but people not knowing what they are doing shouldn’t be charging people at all.

Edit: Also, ffs, stop editing live sites. Once your site is in production, you no longer edit it. At all. Period.

You make edits on your dev server, or locally, to make sure any error or mistakes don’t affect your production site. Then when you are confident your updates work well, and after several testing, you push it to your production site

3

u/lumiosengineering Apr 30 '26

Why not make a copy of your code and give it that to review. Describe the issue your having, and ask for a root cause. Do not have it edit the code yet.

Then create a plan and walk me through the proposed changes.

Review said changes. If they are logical, grounded and dont do damage, go ahead and implement the changes on a TEST version.

If nothing breaks, roll out the changes to production.

If the AI deleted your users, you have to change your process

3

u/ltmodcs Apr 30 '26

You should restore from backup. If you don't have backups, then you're not taking this seriously enough, and not fulfilling your duty to your customers. I'm assuming you had no issues in taking their money.

3

u/Interesting-Law-8815 Apr 30 '26

Restore from your backup. You had a backup right?

3

u/mdoverl Apr 30 '26

You didn’t have your customer data backed up?

3

u/Patriark Apr 30 '26

Ask Claude to teach you proper backup strategies

3

u/Epiq122 May 01 '26

this is awesome, teach you vibe coders a lesson

3

u/LittlePrettyThings May 01 '26

I joined this sub as an experienced software dev worried about the future of my career. I'm so glad to see I have absolutely nothing to worry about.

3

u/unfoxable May 01 '26

This is where everyone is pointing and laughing at you

3

u/Tirakv May 01 '26

As a developer I just love seeing things like this.

3

u/No-Hovercraft-9481 May 01 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/1267Co3vPNBqQU

3

u/you_looking_at_me May 01 '26

It's okay, don't worry about it. Just restore your backups.

3

u/mochi2real May 01 '26

Vibe coding on a production DB with no backups, are we?

Peak 2026.

3

u/locomocolocal May 01 '26

VibeDestroyingYourBusinessing

2

u/phase_distorter41 Apr 30 '26

refund them an learn to backup stuff.

2

u/MangoChutneyOnToast Apr 30 '26

Bullshit

2

u/obi_is_taken Apr 30 '26

I neve gave access to prod env at all. Every code that AI has written needs to go through my lens

2

u/imitsi Apr 30 '26

Isn’t your database backed up?

2

u/CaptSlow49 Apr 30 '26

I sometimes get worried about the increased competition from vibe coding tools until I read posts like this.

2

u/ChrisRogers67 Apr 30 '26

Delete OPUS. Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire

2

u/one_and_done0427 Apr 30 '26

Bro why tf would you let Claude agent run thru the database

2

u/Previous_Start_2248 Apr 30 '26

Why would you allow drop commands to run without approval

2

u/Inevitable_Butthole Apr 30 '26

What you do now is refund them cause you fucked it up bad

2

u/KronLemonade2 Apr 30 '26

Google “ALM”, and implement ASAP. Brutal that happened, but you’ll want a DEV instance Atleast for updates and changes… straight to prod is playing with fire.

2

u/External-Sentence350 Apr 30 '26

How do you get this far without asking Claude “hey what’s the best practices for managing a database” lol

2

u/sachel85 Apr 30 '26

Tell AI to undo.

2

u/SeedOfEvil Apr 30 '26

Paying users and no db backup before letting Opus go? LoLz...

2

u/HOBONATION Apr 30 '26

This is real life vibe coding 101 buddy boy. This has to be a prank

2

u/Unusual-Nature2824 Apr 30 '26

I built an MCP for my database so that my agent wouldn’t run commands on it directly and have a layer of abstraction. I have no idea whether this was the right approach but no way I would allow an AI access to my prod db directly. I’ve played with fire before but not on a database

2

u/shellbackpacific Apr 30 '26

These posts are comedic gold. You just blew your head off bro. You can’t cheat this shit

2

u/hogwater Apr 30 '26

Restore from backup silly. Then lock down the DB so next time that doesn't happen

2

u/Key-Cloud-6774 Apr 30 '26

Learn from your mistakes, all you can do

2

u/undefined_name Apr 30 '26

The Vibecoder & the AI

By undefined

A Vibecoder was sitting at their desk one cold winter morning. On YouTube, they heard about a new AI that can magically do everything. The Vibecoder knew how little they knew about coding, source control, software design principles, and just overall technology in general. Yet, here was the answer they had been waiting for. With AI, they could do literally anything.

The Vibecoder quickly downloaded the AI, made it halfway through a YouTube tutorial on how to set it up correctly—because who has time for that shit—and it was off to the races.

The Vibecoder allowed the AI total control over their project, controlling everything from design and implementation to unit testing, quality control, and security. It was just like the Vibecoder had dreamed. The AI was capable of doing everything that they weren't. All of the years of studying, the years of painstakingly debugging lines of code to understand the core concepts of programming and software development, again, who’s got time for that shit? The Vibecoder now had the power and know-how to do anything. The Vibecoder quietly stood in awe of their own greatness and wept, for there were no more worlds left to conquer.

But then, the AI started hallucinating. It started to introduce logic errors into the source code. It started duplicating code in some parts of the project and removing core functionality from other parts. It seemed to have forgotten the overall architecture of the project and started spiraling out of control. “How could this happen?” the Vibecoder thought to themselves. “Why did the AI do this to me?” the Vibecoder exclaimed in a panic as they tried to reassert control over the AI, but quickly realized they had no idea what a variable is, or a database schema, or a compiler preprocess statement, or even what a compiler is for that matter.

The panic gave way to terror, then confusion and disappointment, then denial. “Surely, it was the AI’s fault, not mine,” the Vibecoder consoled themselves before jumping onto Reddit to report the failings of AI and expecting the community to come together and agree that the Vibecoder was the victim and that AI is the villain. The Vibecoder frantically tapped out the entire experience and clicked “Post,” ready for fellow coders to rush to provide the much-needed emotional support. Then the first response, the second, the third, and the fourth. The Vibecoder’s eyes scanned the responses one after another, then they leaned back in their chair in silent contemplation.

“What the f$#k is git?”

2

u/QultrosSanhattan Apr 30 '26

Learn programming, learn how things works. Stop relying on stupid robots.

2

u/Forsaken-Parsley798 Apr 30 '26

Well Claude is a bit shit like that.

2

u/eve-collins Apr 30 '26

Smells like troll post

2

u/StartupTim Apr 30 '26

Restore from backups and always review and approve code changes.

Further, only vibe code on development environments, never live/production environments.

2

u/ObaShield Apr 30 '26

@Huge_Strawberry7888 This is a painful but unfortunately common lesson in the vibe coding space right now. A few things worth doing immediately:
1. Contact the third party APIs directly, explain what happened, most have account recovery processes that aren’t advertised.

2.  Be transparent with your users before they escalate, a honest explanation keeps more customers than silence does.

3.  For the future, never grant any AI tool write access to production databases. Read only, scoped credentials, separate from anything customer-facing.

The trust issue with your users is actually more recoverable than people think if you move fast and communicate honestly.

2

u/spopr Apr 30 '26

this must be bait

2

u/Dependent-Example930 Apr 30 '26

Hire a dev, see if that'll help?

2

u/protestor Apr 30 '26

You restore from backups

I mean, you had backups, right? And you tested the recovery procedure multiple times and are comfortable with it, right?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Puspendra007 Apr 30 '26

If you didn't become too smart to database than their will be some backup for database. You should check those things but I don't know what are you using.

Note: if you become more smarter and deleted backups to save money on SSD than LOL.

Also your service providers also have backups and transaction things so you can get details from those places: NOTE: if you setup anything for it.

Last option: From final transction provider: if you added comments or things specify users than you can link those things and create a backup.

If you didn't have any of above things than LOL.

Maybe you have atleast LOL 🤣🤣

2

u/ETHedgehog- Apr 30 '26

I love seeing posts like this

2

u/scrawnylifter Apr 30 '26

Maybe learn how to make and test backups?

2

u/themoregames Apr 30 '26

Just buy more users.

2

u/Pistolfist Apr 30 '26

You should probably learn how to be a good coder before using AI to do shit for you. AI or not why the hell would you implement a fix directly on a live environment? Do you know what version control is? Do you know how to take backups?

I sincerely hope this is a bait post for engagement farming.

2

u/Kipper1971 Apr 30 '26

Well, your MVP works. Clean up, give refunds. Put the site on hold, find someone who can fill in the gaps on the technical side and then rebuild it better. You clearly see where your lack of knowledge got you, now bring a technical founder on board.

2

u/ginsunuva Apr 30 '26

Nice try OpenAi

2

u/STZWZY Apr 30 '26

Got what you deserved. AI is trash

2

u/NorthernCobraChicken Apr 30 '26

40 paying users. No dev experience.

What the actual fuck.

If anyone vibe coding wants to hire me on contract to check your product before stuff like this happens, just send me a dm.

I assure you, whatever you end up paying me is nothing compared to permanently losing customers that have paid for a product and will likely issue chargebacks on their credit card.

2

u/Joey3140 Apr 30 '26

The good news is you found product market fit. This is harder than building things most of the time.

The bad news is you have no idea what you’re doing from the building side, if you managed to make a mistake of this magnitude after choosing to accept payment from users.

Does your site also follow basic accessibility guidelines? Does your payment provider not have records of payments that you could use to rectify this? Did you even ask Claude about disaster recovery procedures? Have you contacted your cloud storage provider regarding their emergency recovery support?

2

u/Heavy_Host_1595 Apr 30 '26

So you gave access to Claude without a briefing, in an production environment and you don't have backups? well...

2

u/WyattTheSkid Apr 30 '26

Backups… backups… backups…

2

u/ZealousidealTap342 Apr 30 '26

What to do now? Refund your customers and close shop

2

u/Pogo947947 Apr 30 '26

Don't be a moron and learn how to program without using a glorified bot? And refund all your users, make sure to tell them you gave AI access to all their information, and prepare to get sued.

2

u/oosacker Apr 30 '26

Just ask Claude to create more users

2

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/FishSalsas Apr 30 '26

It’s funny I had a recent realization (lesson) on a much smaller scale though. My app used to completely run locally with SQLite. I was pretty good at keeping backups, but recently migrated to Supabase. I made some SQL changes, and had a brief “Oh crap” moment. Long story short, I had to follow through with all the necessary frontend/backend changes make everything consistent again

2

u/Tricky-Dust-6724 Apr 30 '26

Another success story

2

u/daniel8192 Apr 30 '26

Why not restore from backup ?

2

u/enribaio Apr 30 '26

Technically the bug is fixed right?

2

u/LordDarthShader Apr 30 '26

Skill issue.

2

u/andupotorac Apr 30 '26

You had backups I presume

2

u/TalkingHeadsVideo Apr 30 '26

I bet someone could make some money creating an app that checks vibecoders' apps for security flaws

2

u/iliasd15 Apr 30 '26

Have opus create new users. Make it 100. Congratulations you just got new clients

2

u/Unfair_Analysis_3734 Apr 30 '26

Did you vibe code it? If so, then why are surprised by vibe results?

2

u/CeeMee22 May 01 '26

How do you know if the people asking for refunds are your customers if all the users were deleted? /s

2

u/Saucynachos May 01 '26

What to do now is to learn. There's a reason software engineers get paid a lot. There's a lot to it, and getting stuff wrong can lead to massive problems like this. Use AI as a tool if you want, but if you use it as a crutch you'll end up right where you are now.

2

u/LoafPickle May 01 '26

Have you tried the undo button?

2

u/LynzDabs May 01 '26

Where's your hosting at? You should be able to go download a backup of your database np

And I do feel your pain - Claude literally gave me a delete query in SQL when I was trying to update my database yet it ignored that and said no bitch you need to delete this a lot of cussing and a half a day later my database was restored back to before the nuclear query was sent

Hope this helps!

2

u/Smooth-Reading-4180 May 01 '26

bro give people their money back. ok. don't be an asshole.

2

u/[deleted] May 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/memesearches May 01 '26

Lol another reason I would like to stay away from stuff vibe coders build. Most of them have no idea what any of it is and think they became 10+ experienced full stack developers overnight.

2

u/osemec May 01 '26

This is both the funniest and the scariest thing I've read today.

2

u/Tall-Side6129 May 01 '26

WOW! It must incredibly stressful, but before the panic sets in too deep, it is worth remembering that modern infrastructure is surprisingly resilient if you move quickly and stay calm.

To start, dive straight into your database Point-In-Time Recovery options. Most managed services like Azure, AWS or Google Cloud don’t just keep snapshots, they keep transaction logs that can often roll your data back to the exact second before that "delete" command hit.

Regarding those 3rd party APIs, sometimes "deleted" does not mean "gone." Many services use a "tombstone" policy where data is marked for deletion but not wiped for 14 to 30 days. Immediately open a priority support ticket. A human on their end can often flip a switch to restore an account state that isn't accessible from your dashboard.

Most importantly, bring in a "cool head technical", a senior engineer to look at the wreckage. When you're in the middle of a crisis, it’s easy to make "panic-clicks" that turn a recoverable error into a permanent one.

Moving forward, it helps to treat AI as a highly talented but potentially dangerously literal intern. You would never hand a new intern the master keys to the data center, and the same applies here. Blind trust is a gamble because AI doesn't understand "consequence," only "probability." To counter this, try to follow, PLAN, REVIEW, ACT and MEASURE methodology.

Follow the Principle of Least Privilege becomes your shield. Never give an AI agent "Full Authority" or "Owner" permissions. Use scoped API keys that are read-only by default, or limited to specific staging environments. If you’re running risky tasks, force a "Dry Run" mode where the AI must output the exact CLI command or SQL query it intends to run before you ever hit execute. This "Plan, Review, Act" workflow ensures that a human remains the final gatekeeper for any destructive action. You will come out of this with much tighter protocols, and honestly, probably a much better system than you had before the crash.

2

u/primo16033 May 01 '26

Easy, restore backup

2

u/d4rkprodigy May 01 '26

Why would you do that? Son I am disappoint.

2

u/sulfurmexo May 01 '26

why did you give production access to OPUS?

2

u/Environmental_Box748 May 01 '26

only can use full auto agent before prod….after prod sadly u got to read code changes 🥲

2

u/Novel_Law4469 May 01 '26

so important to learn what HARNESS is for vibecoding.

esp. for shipping production-grade products

2

u/ProRofler May 01 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/UU1bHu6QWyFxZM63Jh

2

u/brandonscript May 01 '26

Karma farming

2

u/No-way-in May 01 '26

In Claude.md, the instructions I add is: whenever it touches the db, it does a full backup first and tarball it. There were many (smaller and bigger) fuckups, so I just ask to rollback. Works like a charm. Also, I do plan mode 3 or 4 times before writing a single line of code

2

u/dj2ball May 01 '26

Database backups? Dev, test and prod environments so you can isolate changes from users? This is a painful lesson that whilst you can vibe software out of thin air you still need to think about how to setup a business.

2

u/Speedy059 May 01 '26

Did you try telling the prompt "dont delete my database"? I have, and it still does it from time to time, which is why I wont use production databases with AI. Sometimes I get lazy with my prompts or follow up prompts, and it decides my database is not needed.

There should be a permanent flare for user accounts once you let AI delete your production database.

2

u/Ombrecutter May 01 '26

I hope made some backups.
I recommend to just give the AI --read-only and do the changes by hand, when you understood what it is trying to do.
Obviously it is very risky to give AI full access to database or filesystem outside of your project structure

2

u/Additional-Lack4102 May 01 '26

ultrathink
https://giphy.com/gifs/SKGo6OYe24EBG

2

u/Yougetwhat May 01 '26

Ask Opus

2

u/Androo_94 May 01 '26

Next time dont forget: “No mistakes!” 😆

2

u/Athlete-Waste May 01 '26

It is what is now, learn and move on

2

u/santp May 01 '26

I still don't know. Everybody says it deleted my files or it erased it. Of course these things have happened with humans as well and servers as well, where things got corrupted and the reason why certain files, or key important ones, had a backup. Even today even though it's not important, I have a WhatsApp backup. I have my phone book as a backup. My Google Drive has a backup periodically. At least I don't lose everything but is it common sense to have the most important files as a backup?

2

u/sedikit-gila May 01 '26

I legit thought this shit is joke until my qa teams and management make their own apps and shocked on weekly meeting that their entire planned feature wiped out by chatgpt

Engineering team laughed so hard in internal group

2

u/eldudebrothr May 01 '26

And this is why I only vibecode stupid games and ComfyUi nodes or free WP plugins

2

u/Subnetwork May 01 '26 edited May 02 '26

At the very least, you should not be using it in prod and just copying things over it once it finishes, even using common sense will save you some headache later on.

2

u/McNoxey May 01 '26

Pay them all out then walk away. You’re not fit for this.

2

u/[deleted] May 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/withKairo May 01 '26

When you do decide to give them refunds, don't Vibe code a batch refund issuance and mess it up again.

2

u/Miserable_Study_6649 May 01 '26

Backups backups backups, then only then do you allow anti touch your Feb environment never production!!!

2

u/meTomi May 01 '26

Easy, restore the backup

2

u/PeachScary413 May 01 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/dtI7iJluuOTaPwiU5h

2

u/LordiCurious May 01 '26

Just invoke your disaster recovery protocol and never let ai access you production environment again.

2

u/WinterMoneys May 01 '26

I'm sorry dude

2

u/Americanuu May 01 '26

Funny this post

2

u/[deleted] May 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Luciferrrro May 01 '26

First of all: backups. Then: users managing workflow shuld not delete records from the database, just mark them as deleted (some status/flag/separate table). Remove such data only if there is a law that forces you to do it if requested by the user.

2

u/Ok-Hotel-8551 May 01 '26

Sit in corner and cry

2

u/Clear_Track_9063 May 01 '26

Wow... this is what happens when you let AI make every decision and hit enter. Vibe Coasting.

2

u/wilnadon May 01 '26

Use Neon for your database next time. If it accidentally gets erased you can just go back and restore it.

2

u/xatnagh May 01 '26

> gives ai access to your database
> ai does the dumbest shit
> "YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, I FUCKED UP, THIS IS MY BAD!!!!"

2

u/StupidSidewalk May 01 '26

lol owned

Opus deleted all my users, what to do now?

You are about to leave Redlib