Hatchik help → Going back

Going back

You cannot permanently break your live site. Every time something is made live, Hatchik first saves the version that was live before it — the files and, for an app, a snapshot of its database at that moment.

The very first time a site goes live is the one exception, and it is not really one: there was nothing there before it, so there is nothing to save and nothing to go back to. From your second publish on, undo always has somewhere to go.

Undo the last change

Say it in your own words: "undo that", "put it back how it was", "that broke something, go back".

Claude puts the live site back to the previous version and restarts it. For an app, the data goes back with it. It takes a few seconds.

Go back further

Say "show me what I can go back to". You get a list of the saved versions with when each one was published, and you pick one. Hatchik keeps the last 10 versions of a project's live site.

What going back also undoes

For an app, the code and the data move together. That is usually what you want — a change that corrupted your records is undone along with the change. But it also means anything real that happened after that version was published is rolled back with it: orders taken, accounts created, messages received, notes left on a form.

Going back puts the database back to exactly how it was, which includes two things worth being clear about:

• Records added since stop existing. Not just accounts — every kind of record your app keeps.
• A whole kind of record added since is removed. If your app started storing something new after that version — bookings, say, when the version you are going back to had no bookings in it — going back removes it and everything in it. It has to: leaving it behind would give you old code sitting beside newer records, which is a state your app has never been tested in.

You will not walk into either by accident. Before it touches anything, Claude works out what going back would cost and tells you in one message: how many records, from which part of your app, and which kinds of record would be removed outright. Then it waits for you to say yes. If it cannot work out the number — some records carry no date, so there is no honest way to tell which arrived since — it says so plainly and still waits. It never goes ahead quietly.

If people have used your app since the version you are going back to, it is often better not to go back at all: Claude can usually fix the code on its own, which keeps everything your customers did. And if you want to keep what is there before going back anyway, ask Claude to export the project first — one file with all your data in it, in seconds.

Apps with a lot of uploaded files

Files your app's users upload — photographs, documents, attachments — live separately from its code and its database. Hatchik keeps a copy of them inside each saved version too, so an undo puts the records and the files back together.

Above a size limit that stops being affordable: keeping ten copies of a very large set of files would fill the machine. When an app is over that limit, its saved versions hold the code and the database but not the files. Going back to one of those puts your records back and leaves every uploaded file exactly where it is, which can leave a record pointing at the wrong file.

You will not walk into that by accident. Claude checks before it goes back, and if this is one of those versions it stops, tells you in plain English, and waits for you to say yes. Your project page says the same thing. If you would rather keep a copy of everything first, ask Claude to export the project — that is one file with all your files and data in it, and it takes seconds.

If there is nothing to go back to

Sometimes there is no saved version. Usually that just means you have only published once — the first copy is of whatever the second publish replaces, so it appears the second time you make something live, not the first.

Occasionally it means Hatchik tried to save a copy and could not. Publishing still works, and your site is unaffected; what is missing is the copy taken just before. When that happens Claude tells you, and so does your project page, rather than letting you find out on the day you need it. There is nothing for you to fix and nothing extra to pay — Hatchik can see it and is on it. Until it clears, export the project before any big change so you are holding a copy yourself.

If you cannot reach Claude

Undo lives in the connector. If your connection to Hatchik has stopped working and your live site is broken at the same time, reconnect it first — the "Connecting Claude" page has the three steps, and it takes about a minute.

There is no undo button in the dashboard yet. If you are stuck with a broken live site and no working connector, the fastest safe move is to sign in at https://app.hatchik.com, open the project, and read its recent logs so you can tell Claude exactly what it says once you are reconnected.

The same page as plain text, for an AI or anything else that prefers it: /docs/undo.md