History

A complete, searchable operations timeline for your project — every agent action, commit, mission phase, pack regeneration, and conflict event, with full replay from any checkpoint.

**Screenshot: The History tab in full two-pane layout — left timeline panel showing a chronological list of event cards (commit, session, mission, conflict event types all visible with distinct icons), right detail panel showing a selected commit event with a full syntax-highlighted diff. The filter bar and search input should be visible at the top of the left panel.

What is the History View?

The History view is ADE’s complete operations ledger. Every meaningful action that occurs in your project — whether taken by an agent, triggered by automation, or initiated by you — is recorded as a timestamped event in the timeline.

Unlike a standard git log, the History view records the full operational context: agent session transcripts, pack regeneration diffs, mission phase transitions, conflict detection and resolution events, and PR lifecycle events. It is the single place where you can answer: “What exactly happened in this project over the last two days?”

Complete Audit Trail

Every agent action, git operation, lane event, and mission milestone is recorded with full metadata and context.

Checkpoints as Save Points

Immutable snapshots at significant moments. Return to any checkpoint to see exactly what the project looked like at that instant.

Replay from Any Point

Branch a new lane from any checkpoint commit and optionally re-run the agent session that produced it — for debugging, recovery, or exploration.

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Event Types Reference

The History timeline records the following event categories. Each is displayed with a distinct icon and color in the timeline.

Session Events

Recorded when agent or terminal sessions start and end, and for significant commands run within them.

Event	Description
session.start	A terminal or agent chat session began in a lane
session.end	Session ended (user closed it, agent completed, or timeout)
session.command	A significant command was run (long-running commands, commands that modified files)
agent.start	An AI agent session began, including its initial prompt and injected Lane Pack
agent.end	Agent session completed, with final token usage and outcome

Session events link to the full session transcript in the detail panel — a searchable, time-stamped record of every exchange.

Commit Events

One event per git commit, across all lanes.

Field	Value
Lane	Which lane the commit belongs to
Branch	The branch the commit landed on
SHA	Full commit SHA (click to copy)
Message	Full commit message
Author	Git author name and email
Diff	Full diff available in the detail panel

Commit events are the most common event type. They are the anchor for checkpoint creation.

Pack Events

Recorded when any Pack (Lane Pack, Project Pack, Conflict Pack) is generated, refreshed, or invalidated.

Event	Description
pack.generated	A new pack was created for a lane or project
pack.refreshed	An existing pack was regenerated after a commit
pack.invalidated	A pack was marked stale (e.g., after a commit made its context outdated)

The detail panel for pack events shows a side-by-side diff of the old pack content vs. the new pack content — useful for understanding how the AI’s understanding of a lane evolved over time.

Lane Operations

Recorded for structural lane changes.

• lane.created — new lane added to the project
• lane.archived — lane archived
• lane.deleted — lane deleted (metadata retained for 30 days)
• lane.rebased — lane rebased onto its base branch (includes before/after SHAs)
• lane.stacked — lane’s base was changed (reparented onto another lane)
• lane.pack_regenerated — manual pack regeneration triggered

Mission Events

Recorded at each phase transition and significant milestone in a Mission’s lifecycle.

Event	Description
mission.created	Mission created with initial intent
mission.planning	Mission entered the Planning phase
mission.approval_requested	Plan presented to user for approval
mission.approved	User approved the plan
mission.execution_started	Workers began executing tasks
mission.validation_started	Execution complete, validation phase begun
mission.completed	Mission finished successfully
mission.failed	Mission failed (with reason and last known state)
mission.cancelled	User cancelled the mission mid-execution

The detail panel for mission events shows a mini mission summary: the plan that was approved, the worker assignments, the validation results, and a phase timeline bar.

Automation Events

Recorded when an Automation rule fires.

• automation.triggered — trigger condition matched (includes trigger payload)
• automation.started — automation began executing
• automation.completed — automation finished (with result summary)
• automation.failed — automation encountered an error (with error detail and stack)

Failed automation events are highlighted with a red left border in the timeline for quick scanning.

Conflict Events

Recorded for the full conflict lifecycle.

• conflict.detected — a new conflict was found by the simulation engine (includes lane pair and conflict type)
• conflict.resolved — conflict was resolved (includes resolution method: proposal, manual, external tool, agent)
• conflict.dismissed — user dismissed the conflict as not actionable

The detail panel shows the Conflict Pack that was active at detection time, allowing you to review exactly what the conflict looked like even after it has been resolved.

PR Events

Recorded for GitHub pull request lifecycle events on all linked PRs.

• pr.opened — PR created (includes initial description)
• pr.updated — PR description or title updated
• pr.review_submitted — a reviewer submitted a review (approved, changes_requested, commented)
• pr.merged — PR merged (includes merge strategy and merge commit SHA)
• pr.closed — PR closed without merging
• pr.ci_status_changed — a CI check changed state (with check name and new status)

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The Timeline Panel

The left panel shows all events in reverse chronological order (newest first). Each event card displays:

• Event type icon — a distinct icon for the event category
• Short description — a human-readable summary (e.g., “Commit to auth-refactor: add session expiry logic”)
• Timestamp — relative time (e.g., “3 hours ago”) with full timestamp on hover
• Lane / Mission badge — which lane or mission the event belongs to, colored by lane

Filtering the Timeline

**Screenshot: The History timeline filter bar expanded — showing checkboxes for event type categories (commits, sessions, missions, automations, conflicts, prs), a lane selector dropdown, a date range picker, and a search input. A “3 active filters” badge should be visible on the filter button.

Use the filter bar at the top of the timeline to narrow the event list:

Filter	Options
Event type	One or more categories (commits, sessions, missions, automations, conflicts, PRs, packs, lanes)
Lane	One or more specific lanes
Date range	Preset ranges (today, last 7 days, last 30 days) or a custom start/end
Agent	Filter to events involving a specific AI model or agent role
Mission	Show only events belonging to a specific mission

Grouping the Timeline

Use the Group by dropdown to change how events are organized:

• None — flat chronological list (default)
• Day — events grouped by calendar day with date dividers
• Session — events grouped by the agent or terminal session that produced them
• Mission — events grouped under their parent mission
• Lane — all events from a given lane are grouped together

Searching

The search bar performs full-text search across event descriptions, commit messages, session transcript excerpts, and pack content. Results are highlighted inline in the timeline. Press Cmd+F to focus the search bar from anywhere in the History tab.

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The Event Detail Panel

Clicking any event in the timeline opens its full detail in the right panel. The detail content is tailored to the event type.

Commit

• Full diff viewer with syntax highlighting and line numbers
• Commit message, author, SHA (copyable), timestamp
• Associated lane badge and branch name
• “Create Lane from This Commit” button — branches a new lane from this commit’s SHA
• List of files changed, with click-to-expand per-file diff
• Link to the associated checkpoint (if this commit created one)

Session

• Full session transcript in a scrollable, searchable viewer
• Timestamps on every exchange (user message, agent response, tool call, tool result)
• Token usage bar (prompt tokens, completion tokens, total, cost)
• Lane context injected at session start (the Lane Pack that was active)
• Session outcome tag: completed, cancelled, error, timed_out
• “Replay This Session” button (see Replay)

Mission

• Mission intent (the original goal)
• Approved plan summary
• Phase timeline: planning → approval → execution → validation, with timestamps for each transition
• Worker assignments: which agent ran which task in which lane
• Validation results: test outcomes, CI status, acceptance criteria checked/failed
• Final cost breakdown (tokens per worker)

Pack

• Side-by-side diff of old pack content vs. new pack content
• Sections highlighted: intent changes, criteria changes, touched files delta, diff summary changes
• Trigger reason (commit SHA, manual trigger, or automation)
• Pack size (token count) before and after

Conflict

• Conflict type (file-level, semantic, dependency)
• Files involved, with the conflicting hunks
• Both lanes’ diffs at the time of detection
• Resolution method (if resolved): proposal, manual, external tool, or agent
• Time to resolution
• Link to the Conflicts tab filtered to this lane pair

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Checkpoints

Checkpoints are the “save points” of ADE’s history. They are created automatically at significant moments and are immutable — their content never changes after creation.

When Checkpoints Are Created

Trigger	Description
Git commit	A checkpoint is created for every commit in every lane
Session end	When a terminal or agent session closes, a checkpoint captures the session transcript and the lane’s git state at that moment
Mission phase transition	A checkpoint is created at the completion of each mission phase
Manual checkpoint	You can create a manual checkpoint at any time via the “Create Checkpoint” button in the lane detail header

What a Checkpoint Contains

• Git state: The commit SHA the lane was on at this moment (or the diff if between commits)
• Session transcript: The full session transcript if this checkpoint was triggered by a session end
• Lane Pack snapshot: The Lane Pack content at this exact moment
• Metadata: Timestamp, the agent or user that triggered it, the associated lane and mission (if any)
• Validation results: Test pass/fail counts, CI status at this point (if available)

Checkpoints for deleted lanes are retained in ADE’s local database for 30 days. After 30 days, checkpoints for deleted lanes are purged. Checkpoints for active and archived lanes are retained indefinitely.

Checkpoint Indicators in the Timeline

Checkpoints appear as distinct markers in the timeline — a filled bookmark icon. They are also shown as vertical markers on the timeline’s scrubber bar (the narrow strip on the left edge of the timeline panel), giving you a visual density map of activity over time.

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Replay

From any checkpoint, you can branch a new lane from that point and optionally re-run the agent session that produced the checkpoint.

**Screenshot: The Replay dialog — showing a checkpoint selected in the timeline (highlighted in blue), and the “Replay from Here” dialog open with: lane name field pre-filled as “replay-auth-refactor-checkpoint-3”, a toggle for “Re-run agent session”, and a read-only summary of what the session did (commit count, files touched, agent used). “Create Lane and Replay” and “Create Lane Only” buttons at the bottom.

1. Select a checkpoint

   In the timeline, click a checkpoint event to open its detail. Any checkpoint can be replayed — not just the most recent one.

2. Click 'Replay from Here'

   In the detail panel’s action bar, click Replay from Here. The Replay dialog opens.

3. Configure the replay

   In the dialog:

   • Lane name — ADE pre-fills a name based on the original lane and checkpoint number. Edit if needed.
   • Re-run agent session — toggle on to have ADE re-execute the agent session that produced this checkpoint, using the same prompt and Lane Pack state. Toggle off to create the lane at this commit without re-running the session.
   • Base branch — defaults to the checkpoint’s commit. Can be overridden.
4. Start the replay

   Click Create Lane and Replay. ADE:

   1. Creates a new lane (Worktree type) branched from the checkpoint’s commit SHA
   2. Initializes the lane with the pack snapshot from the checkpoint
   3. If “Re-run agent session” is enabled: queues the agent session to run in the new lane, using the checkpoint’s session transcript as the prompt source

Replay Use Cases

Debugging Agent Behavior

Replay an agent session to observe exactly what it does step by step, with the same starting state. Useful when an agent produced unexpected output and you want to reproduce the problem.

Recovery

If a lane went in the wrong direction, replay from a checkpoint before things went wrong. Create the replay lane, validate it, then archive the original lane.

Counterfactual Exploration

Replay from a checkpoint but modify the starting prompt or Lane Pack before re-running the session. Explore “what if we had asked the agent to do X instead.”

Audit and Compliance

Replay produces an exact reconstruction of the agent’s working environment at a historical point. Useful for auditing what an agent did and why.

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Feature History View

The Feature view is a specialized mode in the History tab that groups all events related to a single Linear issue into one coherent narrative.

To open Feature view: use the Group by: Mission or Group by: Linear Issue options, then click any mission or issue to expand its full event tree.

A Feature view entry shows:

1. Planning events — the CTO’s initial triage, mission creation, plan generation, and approval
2. Execution events — all commits, sessions, and worker actions across all lanes involved in the feature
3. Conflict events — any conflicts that arose during development, and how they were resolved
4. PR events — PR creation, review submissions, CI runs, and merge
5. Resolution — the final merged commit SHA and Linear issue closure event

This is the canonical record for understanding the full lifecycle of a feature, from first assignment to final merge.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Open History tab	Cmd+H
Navigate timeline (previous/next event)	Up / Down
Expand event detail	Enter
Search timeline	Cmd+F
Toggle filter bar	Cmd+Shift+F
Create checkpoint	Cmd+Shift+K
Replay selected checkpoint	Cmd+R

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What’s Next

Conflicts

Understand how conflict events are generated and how to use the resolution workflow.

Missions

See how mission phase transitions create checkpoints and how replay fits into mission debugging.

Lanes

Learn how Lane Packs are generated and how pack events appear in the History timeline.

Automations

See how automation trigger and completion events surface in History and how to diagnose failures.