History

History is on an open document, on a goal's page and on a task's page. All three keep their text the same way, so all three read back the same way.

On a document in a browser the link stands along the top, beside Rename, Archive and Delete. Notes says where those four are in the phone app. On a goal's page and a task's page the link is at the top right, opposite the way back.

Where the panel opens depends on the room. A document in a wide browser window puts it in a column beside the text. A goal's page and a task's page put it above the writing, so a version you pick changes something you can see. In a browser Close at the top of the panel shuts it. On the phone the panel arrives as a sheet over the page, and a tap outside it closes it.

Writing saves itself as you type, and every one of those saves is kept for at least two days. That short trail answers what you just did. It is the net under a bad afternoon rather than a record you are meant to read.

A version answers how the writing has moved. A sweep runs about once an hour and measures each save against the last version it kept, and once enough of the words have changed since then, the last state that still said the old thing becomes a version, kept for good. So a whole afternoon of small autosaves makes one version rather than forty, and a single save a week later that changes what the thing says makes another.

The panel is one list, newest first. A version and a save are both the writing at a moment, so they read in the order they happened rather than in two piles. Every row gives the day and the clock. A version adds the name you gave it where you gave it one, and under that the line saying what changed, labelled Summary because a model wrote it. The trail is gathered into one row per run of writing rather than one per save, so an afternoon reads as a few rows.

Every row holds an earlier state than the text in front of you, except one. A save records the state it replaces, so the newest row is what the page said before its last save. A version you marked yourself holds the text as it stood when you pressed Save version, which is still what the page says until you type again. When the writing in front of you is newer than every row, the panel says The page has edits newer than every save below. above the list, whether or not you have typed anything since opening it. Without that line the top row reads as what the page says now, and its summary describes something else.

Every row is dated by when its own text was written rather than by when a later save replaced it, so the moment a row names is the moment you would have read it.

When the panel says The version list is behind. Every save is still kept., the sealing has not caught up yet. Every earlier state is still in the trail, and versions appear once the sweep runs.

Save version at the top of the panel opens a field. Save beside it, or Return in the field, keeps the current text as a version whatever the words have done since the last one. The name is optional, and a named version reads with its name beside its time in the list. Mark one before a rewrite you may need to undo.

Click a row and the writing itself swaps to that state, laid out as the page rather than as raw text, so you read the old version the way you read the current one. On the phone the version takes the whole screen instead, since there is no room there for the page and the list at once.

Above the swapped text a line names the moment you are reading, by its day as well as its clock. How this read at Aug 31, 4:12pm. Not what it says now. Back to current returns you to the live text, under that line in a browser and at the top of the screen on the phone. Opening a version changes nothing on its own, so you can move through several and leave without touching anything.

Restore this version in a browser, Restore on the phone, appears while you are reading a version, in the panel on the web and at the top of the screen on the phone, and the sentence under it reads Restoring keeps what it says now as a version first. The current text becomes a version of its own before the old one goes in, so the move is one you can make back again by restoring the version it just made.

Pressing it puts the old state back and closes the panel, and the page shows the restored text. Open History again and the version made out of what you replaced is at the top of the list.

Each version gets a short line saying what moved between it and the one before, such as a heading added, a sentence completed, or a section taken out. For a goal that line says first whether the target itself moved, and from what to what. That was the point of keeping versions at all, since a goal post moving is easy to do and hard to notice.

It is one of the jobs under Settings → AI. With What changed in a version switched off, or with AI off for the whole account, versions keep their text and their times and show no line. Every version is still there, and reading and restoring work the same. Models & prompts in the admin guide covers changing the model or the wording it runs with.

The line is written by the same hourly sweep that seals versions, so one you saved yourself with Save version shows up in the list straight away and reads with its time, and its name where you gave it one, until that sweep runs.