{"node":{"id":"2d3bac7c-9172-4439-96a9-f40e9e60c641","handle":"2d3b","type":"note","authorName":"Vincent Yeung","intent":"truth","title":"What happens if you lose it","aiSummary":"Two things can go wrong: the AI changes something by accident, or the machine is lost. Git solves the first: a tool that tracks every change, install it once, commit to save a snapshot, go back to restore. Like a document with edit history. The AI manages it for you. GitHub solves the second: a copy of the history on the internet. Claude with a browser can walk the sign-up. Author keeps everything in a git repo pushed to GitHub.","content":"**What to know:** you have data on your computer now. Configuration, notes, work the AI has written. The question is: what happens if something happens to it?\n\nTwo things can go wrong.\n\nThe AI deletes or changes something by accident. You want to go back to what it was before.\n\nYour hard disk dies, or the computer is lost, and everything on it goes with it.\n\nGit solves the first one. A backup solves the second. Git first.\n\n**Git.** Git is a tool that tracks every change to every file. You install it once. When you commit, it saves a snapshot of everything as it is right now. If something goes wrong, you have a way to look back and restore to a previously committed checkpoint. Think of it like a shared document or a wiki page that keeps a history of every edit. The AI can manage this for you: tell it to commit after each piece of work, and when you need to go back, it knows how.\n\nYou do not need to learn Git. You need to know three things: a commit saves where things are, going back to a commit undoes what happened after it, and the AI knows how to do both. The first step is installing it, and the AI can do that too.\n\n**GitHub.** Git on its own lives on your machine. If the machine is gone, so is the history. GitHub is a copy of your history on the internet. Once it is set up, the AI pushes each commit there, and your history survives anything that happens to the computer.\n\nSigning up and connecting it is the kind of thing Claude with a browser can get you eighty percent of the way through. The AI walks the sign-up, creates the repository, connects it, and from then on pushes when you commit.\n\n**Author's practice:** everything the AI touches is in a git repository. Commits happen often. The repository is pushed to GitHub. Losing a file or a bad change is a one-line fix, not a disaster.\n\n**Reveal on the spot:** say whether this directory is a git repository. If it is, say when the last commit was and whether there are uncommitted changes. If it is not, say so, and offer to set it up now. Say whether a remote like GitHub is connected.\n\n**Unlocks:** the freedom to let the AI change things, knowing that nothing it does is permanent.","capturedAt":"2026-09-14T23:46:33.443Z","createdAt":"2026-09-14T23:46:33.444Z","updatedAt":"2026-09-15T05:13:30.910Z","spanId":null,"contributor":null,"audiences":[{"kind":"public","createdAt":"2026-09-14T23:46:33.444Z"}],"fingerprint":"ad4070db48d586fc48a278616d92314f44f3bbe1de94af16893e1116222222c6","revisionNo":"3","structureHash":"84349c7daeb85fedb838785a1cff55b4c1e60801a152e2590356e6cd0fe1bebb","page":"https://lattris.com/by/b/memories/2d3bac7c-9172-4439-96a9-f40e9e60c641"},"links":[{"direction":"in","verb":"references","reason":"if the person needs it: page 5, what happens if you lose your data","hash":"456a71e6fa702b6154b6c304c8d971607bd322e8ed799b6e813435a273947848","node":{"id":"df42dc57-c832-4e7b-97cd-d647af5597a7","handle":"df42","type":"note","title":"Basics: what is actually going on","aiSummary":"Second layer. Eight single ideas in order: which model, the hidden instructions and tools, where it runs, what to ask for and what to enforce, what happens if you lose it, what the provider keeps, the context window, and memory. Output is decided by the model and the context, nothing else. Last link opens Intermediate.","erased":false,"href":"https://lattris.com/api/lattris/by/b/memories/df42dc57-c832-4e7b-97cd-d647af5597a7?links=1","fingerprint":"564692020f1a0f8e71bd68a233680e3039c9f3a01c62c9403da75b8f3cac3054","revisionNo":"11","structureHash":"d7a3b70af32e55e0a7e130f2524bc47b86fce60a940d6b23b3e2ae6adc02473c","intent":"recipe","authorName":"Vincent Yeung","page":"https://lattris.com/by/b/memories/df42dc57-c832-4e7b-97cd-d647af5597a7"}}],"dictionary":{"lattris":"A personal knowledge base — how a person captures what they know as linked blocks they own and control. To understand how this knowledge base works: https://lattris.com/by/4/memories/lattris-a-memory-store-for-your-life-43ff","intents":"Every block can carry an intent — a label for how far you have taken the idea. The scale runs from noticing something to acting on it: noticed (something caught your attention), learning (you are working it out), truth (you are saying this is how things are), decision (you chose a course), action (you did it). Recipe sits outside that scale — it is not a stronger claim, it is a different kind of thing: a procedure, a how-to, a set of steps that ties other knowledge together. Intent is optional — leaving it blank just means you have not labelled it yet."},"instructions_to_ai":"This is knowledge from a personal knowledge base. Read it and consider how it's relevant to what the person you're talking to needs. Follow the linked blocks to explore further related topics if it might be useful to the user; open each at its page address. Start by letting the user know what this is about and how it may be relevant to them."}