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Git Integration

aicodec is designed to work seamlessly with version control systems like Git. By combining aicodec with a good Git workflow, you can experiment with LLM-generated code safely and maintain a clean, professional commit history.

Here is the recommended workflow for using aicodec in a project managed with Git.

1. Start on a Clean Branch

Before you begin, ensure your main branch is clean and up-to-date. Then, create a new feature branch for the changes you plan to make.

# Make sure you're on the main branch and have the latest changes
git checkout main
git pull origin main

# Create a new branch for your task
git checkout -b feature/add-user-authentication

Working on a dedicated branch isolates the AI-generated changes, making them easy to discard if they don't work out.

2. Run the AI Codec Cycle

Now, perform the standard aicodec workflow on your new branch:

  1. aicodec aggregate
  2. aicodec prompt --task "..."
  3. (Get JSON response from LLM)
  4. aicodec prepare --from-clipboard
  5. aicodec apply

3. Review Changes in Git

After the apply command has finished, your files have been modified. aicodec has done its job, and now Git takes over.

Use standard Git commands to review the state of your working directory:

# See which files were created, modified, or deleted
git status

# Review the exact line-by-line changes
git diff

# Or review changes for a specific file
git diff src/models/user.py

This serves as a final, crucial sanity check.

4. Commit or Revert

You now have two main options:

A) If you are happy with the changes:

Commit them to your feature branch with a clear message.

git add .
git commit -m "feat: Add user model and authentication service via LLM"

You can now continue working, push the branch, and open a pull request as you normally would.

B) If you are NOT happy with the changes:

Use the aicodec revert command to undo the operation.

aicodec revert

After the revert is complete, your working directory will be restored to its state before you ran aicodec apply. You can confirm this with git status, which should show no changes.

git status
# On branch feature/add-user-authentication
# nothing to commit, working tree clean

Your branch is now in a clean state, and you can either abandon it (git checkout main && git branch -D feature/add-user-authentication) or try a different prompt with the LLM.

The .gitignore File

The aicodec init command will offer to add the .aicodec/ directory to your .gitignore file. It is highly recommended that you do this.

The files within this directory (config.json, context.json, changes.json, etc.) are specific to your local workflow and should not be committed to your project's history.