alertApr 1, 2026· 1 min read

Anthropic took down thousands of GitHub repos trying to yank its leaked source code — a move the company says was an accident

Anthropic executives said it was an accident and retracted the bulk of the takedown notices.

anthropic issued a takedown notice to github, resulting in the removal of more than 8,100 repositories. this was an attempt to pull copies of its leaked source code for the claude code command line application. the company later clarified that the takedown was accidental and retracted most of the notices, limiting it to one specific repository and 96 forks.

for indie developers using or considering claude code, this incident means that many legitimate forks were affected but are now restored. if you had a repository taken down, you should check its status on github to ensure access has been reinstated. be aware that the incident may have implications for how you manage and share your code in the future.

if you are maintaining a fork of claude code, ensure you are aware of the latest updates from anthropic. keeping your repository aligned with official releases can help avoid similar issues down the line.

sources
techcrunch.comtechcrunch.com