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Reviewing and restoring changes

Inspect the files an agent reply changed and restore selected files from a checkpoint.

When Change checkpoints is enabled, Dream snapshots your project files before each agent reply and again when the reply finishes. Use these checkpoints to review exactly which files a reply changed and to restore selected files if you want to take a different approach.

How checkpoints work#

  • A checkpoint records the project's working tree, including untracked files, in a private store inside Dream's application data. It does not create commits, stashes, or branches in your own repository, and it works in folders that are not Git repositories.
  • Paths ignored by the project's .gitignore and common build folders such as node_modules, dist, build, and coverage are never captured.
  • Dream takes the before snapshot once per message you send, and the after snapshot when the response finishes or when you stop it.
  • Checkpoints require the git executable to be available to Dream. If capture fails or takes too long, the reply proceeds without a checkpoint and its review control is not shown.

Checkpoints are on by default. To turn them off, open Settings → General, find Chat messages, and disable Change checkpoints.

Enable Change checkpoints in Settings → General to capture files around each reply.

Review a reply's changes#

  1. Wait for the response to finish.
  2. Hover over the assistant message and click View file changes from this reply, the clock icon in the message footer.
  3. In Changes in this reply, review the list of files. Each row shows the path, a status of Added, Deleted, Modified, or Renamed, and its line counts.
  4. Expand a row to read the diff.

The dialog compares the before and after snapshots for that reply only; changes from other replies or from your own edits are not included. If the response was interrupted, the dialog notes that the after state was captured when you opened it.

A file that changed again after the reply, whether from a later reply, a terminal command, or your editor, shows an Edited later badge. Binary files list without a diff.

Restore files#

  1. Select the files you want to restore. Files without later edits are selected by default; use Select all to include every file.
  2. Click Restore. The button shows how many files are selected.
  3. Review the rows marked Restored, then click Close.

Restoring reverses the reply's changes in the selected files while keeping unrelated edits made afterward in the same file. A file the reply created is deleted, a file it deleted is recreated, and a renamed file is moved back to its previous path.

If later edits overlap with the reply's changes, Dream leaves that file untouched and warns you. Choose Overwrite anyway to replace the file with its complete pre-reply contents, discarding those later edits.

Restore cannot be undone from the dialog. Copy any later work you need from the affected files before restoring. Restoring files does not remove messages from the conversation; tell the agent what you restored before asking it to continue.

Restore is a file operation, not a Git operation. Open Changes afterward to review the working tree, and save any editor drafts before restoring the same files.

Checkpoint storage#

Checkpoints remain available as long as their chat exists. Permanently deleting a chat from Settings → Archived Chats removes its checkpoints, and completing or removing a worktree project removes that project's checkpoints. Archiving a chat keeps them.

To try a different approach while keeping the conversation so far, combine a restore with branching from an earlier message. Branching alone copies messages and does not change files.