6 ms·

How do checkpoints work ?

by ashu1461 1y ago

conception 1y ago
You can rewind your context back to the checkpoint
- freedomben 1y ago
  That is nice, but it makes me wonder how little people actually know and use git nowadays. This is after all, something git really shines at. Still good to see! (It's not like I can't still just use git for that, which I fully intend to do)
  - lupusreal 1y ago
    For the first few hours of using claude code, I was really excited about finally not being too lazy to commit often because cc would do it for me. But then I hit my pro account limit and I realized that I'd rather spent my tokens writing features instead of commits... I should probably upgrade my account.
  - gregable 1y ago
    There's value in rewinding both the code and the prompt to the some point in time.
    - lihaciudanieljr 1y ago
      [dead]
  - epiccoleman 1y ago
    That was my first thought too - but this is subtly different, and rewinds the context too. Actually highly useful, because I have often felt like a bad first pass at a solution poisoned my context with Claude.
    - freedomben 1y ago
      Ah, thank you, that's a great sublety that I missed before!
    - anjimito 1y ago
      Yeah this is definitely a useful feature. I use git add for good passes, but this eliminates more manual work
  - ed_mercer 1y ago
    If you're building a feature, you don’t want to commit every single line of code. Instead, you commit complete chunks of work. That’s why the ability to go back with Esc-Esc and revert code changes when Claude goes off the rails is a very welcome improvement.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      If you're using AI like this, it seems to me that it would be perfectly reasonable to make a separate branch, allow for micro-commits, and squash once a "complete chunk of work" is done. That said, having a single option that rewinds LLM context and code state is better than having to do both separately.
    - fragmede 1y ago
      Ugh, no. Git is a distributed vcs. Changes in git stay local unless and until you push them to a server, and then furthermore, point someone else at your changes for review. (Formal PR or otherwise.) Your tools should work for you, and git is no exception. Commit early and commit often. Before you (or an LLM) go on a jaunt through the code, changing whatever, commit the wip to git as you go along. That way, if something goes awry, it's an easy git reset HEAD^ to go backwards just a little bit and undo your changes. Later on, when it's time to share your work, git rebase -i main (or wherever your branching off point was). This will bring up your editor with a list of commits. Reorder them to make more sense, and then also merge commits together by changing the first word on the line to be "fixup". exit your editor and git will rewrite history for outside consumption. Then you can push and ask someone else to review your commits, which hopefully is now a series of readable smaller commits and not one giant commit that does everything, because those suck to review.
  - stavros 1y ago
    I know and use git (well, Jujutsu, which is even better), but it's a right pain to figure out the time of each message and rewind to that exact point. The additional convenience is very much appreciated.
  - torben-friis 1y ago
    - you DONT want your personal Claude conversation in your repo - you DO want your prompts and state synced (going back to a point in the prompt <=> going back to a point in the code). Git is a non starter then. At least the repo’s same git. Plus, you probably don’t want the agent to run mutating git commands, just in case it decides to allucinate a push —force
- libraryofbabel 1y ago
  No, that's not the point of this new checkpoints feature. It's already been possible for a while to rewind context in Claude Code by pressing <ESC><ESC>. This feature rewinds code state alongside context: > Our new checkpoint system automatically saves your code state before each change, and you can instantly rewind to previous versions by tapping Esc twice or using the /rewind command. https://www.anthropic.com/news/enabling-claude-code-to-work-more-autonomously https://www.anthropic.com/news/enabling-claude-code-to-work-... Lots of us were doing something like this already with a combination of WIP git commits and rewinding context. This feature just links the two together and eliminates the manual git stuff.
  - nojs 1y ago
    From the docs it looks like this feature only reverts the edit tool calls, and not e.g. bash commands that have been executed: > Checkpoints apply to Claude’s edits and not user edits or bash commands, and we recommend using them in combination with version control
    - NiloCK 1y ago
      How could they possibly hope to undo bash commands, whose side effects could be anything, anywhere? Hey Claude... uh... unlaunch those
      - 0x6c6f6c 1y ago
        By tracking changes made by a command, like you might with git.
        ishouldbework 1y ago
        [dead]
        vermilingua 1y ago
        And how do you propose they track those changes? Do you want to run your LLM through permanent sudo?

How do checkpoints work ?

conception 1y ago

You can rewind your context back to the checkpoint

freedomben 1y ago
That is nice, but it makes me wonder how little people actually know and use git nowadays. This is after all, something git really shines at. Still good to see! (It's not like I can't still just use git for that, which I fully intend to do)
- lupusreal 1y ago
  For the first few hours of using claude code, I was really excited about finally not being too lazy to commit often because cc would do it for me. But then I hit my pro account limit and I realized that I'd rather spent my tokens writing features instead of commits... I should probably upgrade my account.
- gregable 1y ago
  There's value in rewinding both the code and the prompt to the some point in time.
  - lihaciudanieljr 1y ago
    [dead]
- epiccoleman 1y ago
  That was my first thought too - but this is subtly different, and rewinds the context too. Actually highly useful, because I have often felt like a bad first pass at a solution poisoned my context with Claude.
  - freedomben 1y ago
    Ah, thank you, that's a great sublety that I missed before!
  - anjimito 1y ago
    Yeah this is definitely a useful feature. I use git add for good passes, but this eliminates more manual work
- ed_mercer 1y ago
  If you're building a feature, you don’t want to commit every single line of code. Instead, you commit complete chunks of work. That’s why the ability to go back with Esc-Esc and revert code changes when Claude goes off the rails is a very welcome improvement.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    If you're using AI like this, it seems to me that it would be perfectly reasonable to make a separate branch, allow for micro-commits, and squash once a "complete chunk of work" is done. That said, having a single option that rewinds LLM context and code state is better than having to do both separately.
  - fragmede 1y ago
    Ugh, no. Git is a distributed vcs. Changes in git stay local unless and until you push them to a server, and then furthermore, point someone else at your changes for review. (Formal PR or otherwise.) Your tools should work for you, and git is no exception. Commit early and commit often. Before you (or an LLM) go on a jaunt through the code, changing whatever, commit the wip to git as you go along. That way, if something goes awry, it's an easy git reset HEAD^ to go backwards just a little bit and undo your changes. Later on, when it's time to share your work, git rebase -i main (or wherever your branching off point was). This will bring up your editor with a list of commits. Reorder them to make more sense, and then also merge commits together by changing the first word on the line to be "fixup". exit your editor and git will rewrite history for outside consumption. Then you can push and ask someone else to review your commits, which hopefully is now a series of readable smaller commits and not one giant commit that does everything, because those suck to review.
- stavros 1y ago
  I know and use git (well, Jujutsu, which is even better), but it's a right pain to figure out the time of each message and rewind to that exact point. The additional convenience is very much appreciated.
- torben-friis 1y ago
  - you DONT want your personal Claude conversation in your repo - you DO want your prompts and state synced (going back to a point in the prompt <=> going back to a point in the code). Git is a non starter then. At least the repo’s same git. Plus, you probably don’t want the agent to run mutating git commands, just in case it decides to allucinate a push —force
libraryofbabel 1y ago
No, that's not the point of this new checkpoints feature. It's already been possible for a while to rewind context in Claude Code by pressing <ESC><ESC>. This feature rewinds code state alongside context: > Our new checkpoint system automatically saves your code state before each change, and you can instantly rewind to previous versions by tapping Esc twice or using the /rewind command. https://www.anthropic.com/news/enabling-claude-code-to-work-more-autonomously https://www.anthropic.com/news/enabling-claude-code-to-work-... Lots of us were doing something like this already with a combination of WIP git commits and rewinding context. This feature just links the two together and eliminates the manual git stuff.
- nojs 1y ago
  From the docs it looks like this feature only reverts the edit tool calls, and not e.g. bash commands that have been executed: > Checkpoints apply to Claude’s edits and not user edits or bash commands, and we recommend using them in combination with version control
  - NiloCK 1y ago
    How could they possibly hope to undo bash commands, whose side effects could be anything, anywhere? Hey Claude... uh... unlaunch those
    - 0x6c6f6c 1y ago
      By tracking changes made by a command, like you might with git.
      - ishouldbework 1y ago
        [dead]
      - vermilingua 1y ago
        And how do you propose they track those changes? Do you want to run your LLM through permanent sudo?