Export Edit History to Git

VMark keeps an edit history for every document: each save and each edit an AI client makes through MCP is recorded, with who made it. File → Document History → Export Edit History to Git… copies that history into a Git repository, so you can browse it with git log, diff it, or keep it with your project.

How to export

1. Open the document whose history you want.
2. Choose File → Document History → Export Edit History to Git… (or run Export Edit History to Git from the command palette).
3. Pick a folder inside the Git repository. The picker opens in the document's own folder.

VMark tells you how many commits it added, or that the branch was already up to date.

What the branch holds

The history goes to its own branch, vmark-journal/<document-uuid>. VMark never touches your working tree, your index, HEAD, or any other branch, and it does not switch branches. The branch holds one file, named after the document.

• One commit per revision. Its author is whoever made the edit (you, or the AI client), and its date is the time of the edit.
• One summary commit per stretch of pruned history. VMark prunes old revisions to keep its history small. A run of pruned revisions becomes a single commit named Collected history, listing everyone who edited in that stretch.

Each commit message ends with trailers that tie it back to VMark:

Trailer	Meaning
VMark-Document	The document's identity, the same in every commit
VMark-Revision	The revision this commit records
VMark-Parent	The revision before it
VMark-Actor	Who made the edit
VMark-Kind	How it was recorded: controlled (an AI edit through VMark), observed (a save), gap (a change made outside VMark), and others
VMark-Tool	The MCP tool behind an AI edit
VMark-Session, VMark-Client	The AI client's session label and name, when it gave them
VMark-Collected	On a summary commit: the range of pruned revisions it covers
VMark-Actors	On a summary commit: everyone who edited in that range, sorted

Exporting again

Export as often as you like. A second export adds only the revisions made since the last one; when nothing is new, it changes nothing. The same history always produces the same commits.

VMark refuses, rather than overwrites, when the branch is not what it left there:

• The branch changed since the last export (someone committed to it, rewound it, or rewrote it). Move or delete the branch, then export again.
• A branch with that name exists but is not VMark's export of this document.
• The branch is checked out in a worktree.

Requirements and limits

• Git must be installed. VMark looks for it on your login shell's PATH; if it is missing, the export says so.
• Only saved history is exported. Edits you have not saved yet are not part of it.
• VMark creates commits with Git's low-level commands, so commit hooks do not run. Hooks that watch branch updates do run.
• A large history takes a while: each commit costs a few Git processes.
• In a shallow clone, VMark only continues a branch it exported itself from this computer.
• Do not check out the export branch while exporting. Checkout after the final worktree check can leave that worktree's index and files inconsistent with its moved branch.