Checkpoints

Checkpoints let you revert what the agent changed on disk. R-CLI records a checkpoint for every turn, so you can undo a bad edit immediately instead of hunting through a diff.

Checkpoints do not use git. They work in any folder, including one that was never initialized as a repository.

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Undo the last turn

/undo

Reverts every file the last turn changed and prints what happened:

Undid "fix the parser" · restored 3 files, deleted 1 file · /redo to reapply

Run /undo again to step further back, one turn at a time.

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Redo

/redo

Reapplies the most recently undone turn. Redo history is discarded as soon as the agent makes a new change, so redo always follows your last undo.

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Rewind to an earlier checkpoint

/rewind

Also available as /checkpoints. Unlike /undo, rewind always takes two steps so you can see what you are about to change.

The file picker marks each entry so you know what will happen: + will be restored to its earlier contents, - was created by the agent and will be deleted, ~ edited changed by you since the checkpoint.

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What is captured

Checkpoints are labeled with your prompt text, truncated to 60 characters.

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Limits

When capture disables itself, R-CLI warns you once. File edits made through the agent’s own tools are still captured; only shell side-effect tracking stops.

Skipped files are always reported by name, on a single line after the restore summary:

Skipped: /Users/you/project/assets/video.mp4 (too large), /Users/you/project/src/config.ts (hand-edited, skipped)

These directories are never scanned when tracking shell side effects:

.git  .backboard  node_modules  .venv  venv  __pycache__
.cache  dist  build  out  target  .next  .turbo  coverage

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Hand-edited files

If you changed a file yourself after the agent touched it, R-CLI treats it as diverged. /undo stops its one-keystroke path and shows the options screen so you can decide whether to keep your edit or discard it. Your work is never silently overwritten.

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Where checkpoints are stored

<cwd>/.backboard/sessions/<session-id>/checkpoints/journal.jsonl
<cwd>/.backboard/sessions/objects/
<cwd>/.backboard/sessions/pending-undo.json

<cwd> is the directory R-CLI was started in — not the repository root, unlike settings.json and mcp.json. Starting R-CLI from a subdirectory gives you a separate store, so checkpoints from earlier sessions will not be listed. Start from the same directory each time, or pass --cwd.

The journal is append-only. File contents are stored once in a shared, content-addressed object store, so repeated edits to the same file do not duplicate data.

If R-CLI is killed mid-restore, a marker written before any disk change lets the next launch finish the interrupted restore automatically.

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Gotchas

• /undo, /redo, and /rewind will not run while the agent is working. Press Esc first.

• Checkpoints are per session. /rewind only lists checkpoints from the current session.

• Shell capture is rooted at the session’s working directory. Commands that write outside it are not tracked.

• If checkpoints are unavailable, R-CLI says so rather than silently doing nothing:

  File checkpoints are not available in this session.
  

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Related

• Overview — reviewing changes safely
• Permissions — stop unwanted edits before they happen
• Command reference — all checkpoint commands