a u t o s n a p

Intelligent Local File History & Protection in Time

Autosnap is a lightweight, background service that automatically watches your code for changes and creates intelligent snapshots, allowing you to travel back in time to any version of any file.

Think of it as a local, granular Time Machine for your code—working silently to protect your work from accidental deletion or bad edits.

🚀 Key Features

| Feature | Description | | :--- | :--- | | 🌲 Tree-Based History | Every edit branches off. Restoring an old version creates a new branch, so nothing is ever overwritten or lost. | | 📉 Compact Storage | Uses Forward Delta + Brotli Compression to store dozens of versions in just a few KB (typ. ~80% space reduction). | | ⚡ Zero Friction | Runs silently in the background. No manual git commit needed for every small change. | | 🔄 Non-Destructive Restore | "Pivots" your workspace to any past version instantly without creating duplicate snapshots. |

📦 Installation

Install globally via NPM to use the autosnap CLI anywhere:

npm install -g autosnap

🛠️ Usage Guide

1. Start Watching

Go to your project directory and start the background watcher.

autosnap start

Note: Autosnap automatically ignores node_modules, .git, dist, and other noisy folders.

2. View History

See a summary of all tracked files or deep-dive into a specific file's timeline.

Summary View:

autosnap history

Detailed Tree View:

autosnap history src/server.js

• Snapshot ID: (First Column) Key used for restoration.
• Tree Structure: Visualizes parent-child relationships.
• (HEAD): Your current working version.

3. Restore in Time

Travel back safely. This updates the file in your workspace and "pivots" the history tree to that version.

autosnap restore <SNAPSHOT_ID>

Example: autosnap restore mjibpjwi

4. Other Commands

• autosnap stop: Stop the background process.
• autosnap clear: RESET all history (Irreversible!).
• autosnap settings: Open the config file.

⚙️ Configuration

A .autosnap/config.json is created in your project root.

{
  "debounce": 2000,       // Wait 2s after typing stops before snapshotting
  "maxSize": 102400,      // Max file size to track (in bytes)
  "include": ["**/*"],    // Files to watch
  "exclude": ["*.log"]    // Files to ignore
}

🧩 Architecture

Autosnap uses a modern Forward-Delta Architecture:

1. Root Node: Stores the full initial file content.
2. Child Nodes: Store only the patches (diffs) required to recreate the file from the parent.
3. Storage: All data is compressed (Brotli) and stored in succinct .snap files in .autosnap/store/.

Made with ❤️ by Shanmukha Sai Reddy