I Accidentally Deleted a File I Hadn't Committed. Here's What I Built to Prevent That.

#productivity #showdev #sideprojects #tooling

It was a config file. Three hours of careful tuning. Gone in a moment of carelessness — a stray rm instead of mv in the terminal.

I checked Git. Never committed. I checked my editor. History cleared on restart. I checked Time Machine. Last backup was two hours before the changes started.

The file was gone. No recovery.

The Solution

I built CodeFootprint so this would never happen again.

It is a Mac app that monitors your project folders and records every change to text and code files in real time.

Every edit saved with a full diff
Every deletion preserved with recoverable content
Every change timestamped
Everything stored locally on your machine

How It Differs From Git

Git records what you choose to commit. CodeFootprint records everything, automatically, regardless of the source — your editor, terminal, scripts, AI tools, or Finder.

Git is for collaboration and deployment. CodeFootprint is for knowing what happened.

The Export Feature

You can export your change history and share it with AI tools for debugging and analysis. Instead of manually explaining what changed, you hand the AI a complete trace file.