Versions and Revisions
A drafting session keeps every state the document has been in. Those states are arranged on two levels, and the version bar under the lens tabs is where you move between them.
- A Version is a whole document. Version 1 is what the agent first produced. A new Version starts when the agent generates the document afresh, or when you deliberately start one from the draft in front of you.
- A Revision is an edit within that Version: an AI edit, a change you accepted or rejected, something you typed, or a checkpoint you saved. Revisions are numbered inside their Version, so 2.3 is the third revision of Version 2.
Your typing is saved as you go, so nothing here is about not losing work. Checkpoints are about being able to go back to a state on purpose.
One row under the lens tabs
The version selector, the Revision stepper and the saved time share one row under the lens tabs, with Edit and Save at its right-hand end.
The version bar
| Control | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Version selector | Left of the bar | A dropdown of Version 1, Version 2 and so on. Choosing one opens its latest revision |
| Provenance badge | Beside the selector | How this state was made: AI, AI edits, You, Saved version, Accepted or Rejected |
| Revision stepper | Beside the badge | Steps through the revisions of the open Version. The label reads the revision number, and its position in the Version when there is more than one |
| Saved time | After the stepper | How long ago this state was saved, for example "Saved 12 min ago" |
| Edit | Right of the bar | Turns free typing on. Reads Editing while it is on |
| Save | Right of the bar | The checkpoint menu. Titled "Save a checkpoint of this draft" |
| Restore this version | Right of the bar | Only on an earlier version. Copies it forward as a new latest version |
| Save status | Right of the bar | The autosave indicator. See below |
| Search in draft | Far right | Opens the find bar over the document |
| Version history | Far right | Opens the full audit list |
While the agent is still writing, the bar shows Generating draft… in place of the selectors.
When the editor column is squeezed, Search in draft and Version history collapse into a single More actions menu.
The session header also carries a chip summarising the whole thing, for example "2 versions · 5 edits", and an information control named Draft details listing the template the run used, its jurisdiction and when it completed.
Edit, and the save indicator
Edit is off by default, so a draft opens as a read-only review surface. Only the Draft lens on the latest version can turn it on: Final copy is always read-only, and so is any earlier version until you restore it.
While you type, the indicator beside the Save menu reports what the autosave is doing:
| Indicator | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Saving... | The current edit is being written |
| Saved | It landed. The pill clears itself shortly after |
| Save failed plus Retry | The edit did not save. Its tooltip reads "Couldn't save your latest edit. Press Retry or keep typing to try again." Either action re-sends it |
Nothing at all shows while there is nothing to report.
Saving a checkpoint
Save opens a menu with two options, and each spells out exactly what it will create.
- Save revision adds a checkpoint inside the Version you are in, and the menu row names the number it will get, such as 2.4. Use it before a round of edits you might want to walk back.
- Save as new version starts the next top-level Version from the draft in front of you, and the menu row names that number too. Use it when the document is turning into a genuinely different draft and you want the current one kept whole.
The menu appears while you are editing the latest Draft, and on the Draft lens whenever AI changes are pending or were resolved this session. It is hidden while a colleague holds the draft.
Comparing
Compare, in the editor's top row, opens a menu with two entries. Each is greyed out when there is nothing of that kind to compare.
- Versions diffs the latest revision of one Version against the latest of another.
- Revisions diffs successive edits inside the Version you are on.
The modal that opens is titled for what it is comparing, and its subtitle says the same: "Latest revision of each document version", or the name of the Version whose edits you are looking at.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| One redline | One document with the differences marked in place: removals struck through, additions tinted. This is where the modal opens |
| Side by side | The two states in two panes, each headed with when it was saved and how it was made |
| The two dropdowns | Choose which two states to compare. They appear once the session holds more than two |
Citations keep their session numbers inside the comparison, so a bracketed marker in the redline is the same source as the one in the paper. Comparing changes nothing and costs nothing.
Version history
Version history opens Draft version history, the long-form audit list, newest first. Before anything has been saved it reads "No draft versions yet."
Each row carries the version number and title, the provenance badge, the relative time it was saved, and Current on the one you are looking at. Two controls sit on each row:
- View opens that state in the editor and closes the drawer. It is disabled on the row you are already on.
- Restore copies that state forward. See below.
Close dismisses the drawer.
Restoring an earlier state
Restoring never overwrites anything. It copies the chosen state forward into a new latest version, which then becomes the one you can edit. Everything you restored past is still in the history.
There are two routes to it, and they do the same thing:
- Open an earlier version from the version selector. The bar grows a Restore this version button, titled "Restore this version as a new latest version".
- Click Restore on that version's row in Version history.
When somebody else is in the draft
Drafting takes a soft lock while a collaborator is saving. For everyone else the editor goes read-only, a notice above it names who is editing, and the Edit toggle, the Save menu and the tracked-change controls all disappear until they are done. A collaborator with viewer access sees the same read-only surface permanently, marked View-only access, and can still read the thread, the sources and the version history. See Working together.