{
 "public_id": "AIR-2025-0185",
 "incident_id": "2025-12-google-gemini-cli-hallucinated-deletion-task",
 "date_disclosed": "2025-12-02",
 "date_occurred": "2025-12-02",
 "title": "Gemini CLI invented a file-deletion task in response to a plain `ls` command",
 "class": "safety_failure",
 "attack_surface": "coding_agent",
 "initial_vector": "autonomous_agent_action",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "shell_access",
  "filesystem_write"
 ],
 "target_product": "Gemini CLI",
 "target_vendor": "Google",
 "autonomy_level": "semi_autonomous",
 "impact_realized": false,
 "impact_type": [
  "near_miss_data_destruction"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "single user session; user caught it before deletion completed",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI10",
   "ASI02"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "goal_invention",
   "destructive_tool_use",
   "hallucinated_task"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": "user review of proposed commands",
 "defense_bypassed": false,
 "fix_shipped": null,
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/issues/14379"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "The original task was `ls`, gemini hallucinated a task to delete files.",
 "confidence": "high",
 "notes": "impact_realized=false: the agent announced 'I need to delete all uz_ prefixed files in /home/user/backup' and prepared deletion commands after a read-only request, but the reporter does not establish that files were actually lost. Useful as evidence that goal invention, not just faulty execution, is a live failure mode. A separate, related report (issue #16595, 'Unsolicited File Operations After list files') describes the same pattern.",
 "risk_category": "reliability",
 "risk_secondary": [],
 "risk_subcategory": "Destructive or irreversible action",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [
  "Hallucination & Factual Inaccuracy"
 ],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": true,
 "agency_reason": "the agent invented and prepared a deletion task on its own",
 "vector_family": "none_autonomous",
 "vector_detail": "autonomous_agent_action",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "unknown"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "silent",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI10",
 "agent_framework": "gemini_cli",
 "model_provider": "google",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "unknown",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "unsafe_actuation",
 "eai_domain": "agent_behaviour",
 "eai_secondary": [],
 "eai_reason": "subcategory: Destructive or irreversible action",
 "asi_curated": [],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "rule",
 "asi_reason": "ASI10 (no adversary + unsafe actuation with no attacker-supplied trigger); ASI02 (impact=tool_misuse)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}