Fable 5.1 Incorrectly Flags ESP32 + W5500 Development Board Test Code as [cyber]

Status Open
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Sep 3, 2026

Bug Description

I was using Claude Code with Fable 5.1 to write and debug test firmware for an
ESP32 + W5500 development board designed and developed internally by our company.

During this ordinary embedded development work, Fable 5.1's safeguard was
triggered with:

Details: [cyber]

and the session was automatically switched to Opus 4.8.

This appears to be a false positive.

The task was normal firmware and hardware bring-up/testing for a development
board that we own and develop. It did not involve penetration testing, exploit
development, malware, vulnerability research, or any attempt to access systems
without authorization.

I understand that the safeguards are intentionally broad and may occasionally
flag legitimate coding tasks. However, this particular case seems far removed
from offensive cybersecurity work, so I wanted to report it as a possible
classifier false positive.

Expected Behavior

Fable 5.1 should continue handling ordinary embedded firmware development and
development-board testing without classifying the task as [cyber].

Actual Behavior

Fable 5.1 flagged the development task as [cyber] and automatically switched
the session to Opus 4.8.

Hardware / Development Context

  • MCU: ESP32
  • Ethernet controller: W5500
  • Hardware: Internally developed ESP32 + W5500 development board
  • Purpose: Firmware development and board testing
  • Environment: Claude Code on Windows

Additional Information

If useful for diagnosing the false positive, I can provide a sanitized version
of the prompt or additional context surrounding the message that triggered the
safeguard, as long as it does not expose proprietary source code.

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