Technically, they could be using version control, not have a copy on their local machine for some reason, and have an AI agent issue a `git push -f` wiping out all the previous work.
I know this trope appears fairly often, but in reality unless it's someone's copy of $(git serve) running under their desk with no CI attached to it whatsoever, the commit history still exists and one can recover from a force push by just typing the equivalent of github.example.com/MyAwesomeOrg/MyRepo/commit/cafebabedeadbeef
I hypothesize that a $(git fetch --mirror) would pull down the "orphaned" revision, too, but don't currently have the mental energy to prove it