Anthropic accidentally triggers mass GitHub repository takedown

On Tuesday, a software engineer discovered that Anthropic had accidentally included access to the source code for its Claude Code command line application in a recent release. Following the discovery of the leak, Anthropic sought to protect its intellectual property by issuing a takedown notice under U.S. digital copyright law. The company intended to target the specific repositories hosting the leaked code on GitHub. However, the execution of the legal request had a much broader impact than Anthropic anticipated. According to GitHub’s records, the automated takedown notice was executed against some 8,100 repositories, causing widespread disruption for developers who had copies of the code.

The sweeping removal affected numerous legitimate forks—which are copies of a software repository—connected to Anthropic’s own publicly available Claude Code repository. Boris Cherny, the head of Claude Code at Anthropic, confirmed the error and worked to address the fallout. An Anthropic spokesperson explained that the specific repository named in the legal notice was part of a larger fork network connected to their public repository, which caused the automated takedown to reach far more repositories than the company had intended.

To correct the mistake, Anthropic retracted the takedown notice for almost all of the affected developers. The company narrowed its legal request to target only the single repository it originally named and 96 forks that actually contained the leaked source code. “We retracted the notice for everything except the one repo we named, and GitHub has restored access to the affected forks,” an Anthropic spokesperson said, confirming that access had been restored to the legitimate repositories.

The incident creates a negative perception for Anthropic at a critical juncture, as the company reportedly prepares for an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Transitioning to a public company typically demands rigorous standards of operational execution and regulatory compliance. The combination of an accidental source code leak and a botched cleanup raises questions about the company’s internal controls, with observers noting that such operational missteps for a public company could easily trigger a shareholder lawsuit.

Why it matters

The accidental takedown of thousands of repositories creates a negative perception for Anthropic as it reportedly prepares for an IPO, which requires high standards of execution and compliance.