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HadiFrt20
HadiFrt20

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I lost 3 hours of work to Claude Code, so I built an undo button for AI-assisted coding

#ai #webdev #cli #opensource

I lost 3 hours of work because Claude Code refactored my auth module into oblivion

I was in the zone. Claude Code was crushing it — added OAuth, hooked up the database, wired the routes. Then I said: "refactor auth.ts to use middleware instead of inline checks."

Fifteen files changed. TypeScript errors everywhere. The app wouldn't build. And I realized I hadn't committed in over an hour.

git diff showed me 400 lines of changes across 15 files. I had no idea which version of auth.ts actually worked. I spent 3 hours manually reconstructing the last working state.

That was the moment I built snaprevert.

The problem nobody talks about

Every AI coding tool — Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Aider — shares the same fundamental issue: there's no undo between prompts.

Each prompt touches 5-20 files. You review, prompt again, review, prompt again. You're in flow state. Nobody stops to git commit -m "checkpoint before risky refactor" between each prompt. By the time something breaks, you're 5-10 prompts deep with no checkpoint.

Git requires intent. But when you're pair-programming with an AI at 100mph, intent is the first thing that goes.

snaprevert: the undo button for AI coding 

npx snaprevert watch
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That's the entire setup. One command. Zero config. It silently snapshots your project every time files change. When the AI breaks something:

snaprevert list        # see all snapshots with timestamps
snaprevert diff 5      # see exactly what changed in snapshot #5
snaprevert back 3      # roll back to before snapshot #3
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Your project is restored in under 1 second.

How it works (it's dumber than you think)

No git. No branches. No staging area. It's filesystem-level:

  1. Watch — chokidar monitors your project for file changes
  2. Debounce — waits 3 seconds for changes to settle (groups a single AI prompt's changes)
  3. Diff — computes unified diffs for modified files, stores full content for new files
  4. Store — saves to .snaprevert/snapshots/{timestamp}-{id}/

That's it. Snapshots are diffs, not full copies. A full day of heavy AI coding uses <10MB.

Rollbacks are non-destructive — rolled-back snapshots are preserved. You can re-apply any of them with snaprevert restore.

The features I didn't expect to need

Per-file selective rollback — Claude broke auth.ts but user.ts is fine? Only undo what's broken:

snaprevert back 3 --only auth.ts,routes.ts
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Interactive review — Walk through each file change before committing:

snaprevert review 5
# For each file: [a]ccept [r]eject [s]kip [v]iew diff
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AI tool detection — Snapshots auto-detect which AI tool made the changes. You see claude: modified auth.ts or cursor: added 3 files in the labels.

Snapshot branching — Try two different AI approaches from the same checkpoint:

snaprevert fork 3 --name "approach-a"
# ... try one approach ...
snaprevert fork --switch main
# ... try another approach ...
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MCP server — AI agents can create named checkpoints programmatically:

snaprevert mcp  # starts JSON-RPC server
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Compatible with Claude Code and any MCP client. The AI itself can checkpoint before risky operations.

Why not just use git?

I get this question every time. Here's the honest answer:

Git snaprevert
When it saves When you remember Automatically
Granularity Whatever you staged Every AI prompt
Cognitive cost Decide what + write message Zero
Rollback git reflog, reset, stash... snaprevert back 3

They're complementary, not competing. Git is for meaningful, curated history you push to a team. snaprevert is the continuous autosave between commits — like how Google Docs saves every keystroke but you still "publish" versions.

The stack

  • 3 dependencies: commander, chalk, chokidar
  • 221 tests across unit, integration, and UAT
  • Zero config — works with any project, any AI tool
  • <100ms snapshot creation, <1s rollback

It watches your filesystem, not your AI tool. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Aider, Windsurf, or anything that writes files.

Try it 

npm install -g snaprevert
snaprevert watch
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Then use your AI tool normally. When things break: snaprevert list then snaprevert back 3.

The repo is at github.com/HadiFrt20/snaprevert. MIT licensed, 221 tests, actively maintained.

If you've ever lost work to an AI coding tool, you know why this exists.

If this helps you, a star on the repo means a lot. And if you have feature ideas, issues are open.

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