A developer building a temperature monitor app for their Apple computer recently got a very surprising assist from their new coding tool. The developer was using an AI agent to figure out why their system kept running incredibly hot during normal daily tasks. Instead of just helping with the app’s code, the assistant flagged a hidden piece of software quietly draining the machine’s processing power.
Coding assistant spots hidden software draining processing power
The developer, who goes by UntilHEX on Reddit, was relying on Claude Code to build a tool that tracks raw temperature sensor data. When the computer’s CPU hit a dangerously high 112 degrees Celsius, they needed a closer look. The Anthropic assistant identified a massive problem hiding in plain sight. It noticed a background process called xmrig maxing out roughly 12 cores and consuming an alarming 1175 percent of the processor capacity.
It identified the process as a crypto miner that had embedded itself into the Mac startup files back in late August. This rogue software was the true cause of the severe overheating and sluggish performance the developer had been dealing with for weeks. The developer even admitted the discovery finally made sense of why the hardware had been running so poorly.
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Digital helper quarantines malicious files to save the computer
Rather than deleting files immediately and risking system damage, the artificial intelligence assistant took a cautious approach. It explained how the crypto mining software was hiding in the background and offered a safe cleanup plan. It asked the user for permission to stop the active mining process, disable the startup item, and move the infected files into a secure quarantine folder.
The developer approved the cleanup and let the agent handle the heavy lifting. While they had to manually delete one file due to an access permission issue, the removal process proved highly effective. After running a secondary malware scan to confirm the system was clean, the developer was able to get their computer running at normal speeds and temperatures again.
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