# Changes, modes and undo

> What the assistant, skills and AI apps may change without asking. The four modes, reviewing a change, a meeting's changes, undo, rewind and deleted notes.

- Page: https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/assistant/changes/
- Checked with Samurai Scribe 0.65.0

Nothing the assistant, a skill or an AI app writes reaches your vault until it is allowed to. Each write it proposes is a [change](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#change): a new note, an edit, a move, a delete, a fix to a transcript or a translation of it, a renamed person, or something added to memory. Whether a change applies at once or waits for you depends on the assistant's mode, or, for a skill running as a step or an automation, on that step's or automation's own settings. A change that applied can be undone, and undo keeps anything you wrote since.

## The four modes

Pick the mode from the button under the assistant's message box. Its tooltip reads "What the assistant may do without asking".

- **Ask**: "Reads and answers; changes nothing". In this mode the assistant can't propose changes at all.
- **Review**, the default: "Every change waits for you".
- **Accept edits**: "Edits and new notes apply; moves and deletes wait".
- **Auto**: "Everything applies, and stays undoable". A delete moves the note to the Trash.

The mode you pick stays for every chat on this computer until you change it.

![A table of what applies without asking in each mode. New notes and edits, memory and transcripts included: Ask proposes none, Review waits, Accept edits applies, Auto applies. Moves and deletes: Ask proposes none, Review waits, Accept edits waits, Auto applies, and deletes go to the Trash. Changes to the Skills, Scripts and Dictionary folders: Ask proposes none, and every other mode waits. Applies means at once, and Undo takes it back. Waits means until you press Keep or Discard. Not set by the mode: AI apps follow Settings, AI Apps, Apply Changes Without Asking, and a skill running as a profile step or an automation follows that step's or automation's own two settings. Skills you start yourself from the Skills page follow the mode.](https://samuraiscribe.com/images/docs/assistant/changes/modes.svg "What applies at once, and what waits for you, in each mode.")

Some changes wait whatever the mode:

- **Changes to your Skills, Scripts and Dictionary folders.** A skill or a script goes on running long after anyone looked at it, and the Dictionary changes every transcript made after it, so a change to one always waits, even in Auto.
- **Moves and deletes outside a meeting from a skill running as a step or an automation.**

Who else decides:

- **A skill you start yourself**, from the **Skills** page or with **Find names…**, **Polish transcript…** or **Translate transcript…** in a transcript's ⋮ menu, follows the mode, as a chat does.
- **A skill running as a step of a [processing profile](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/profiles/#what-a-step-may-change), or from an [automation](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/automations/#what-it-may-change)**, follows that step's or automation's two settings: **This meeting** (**Its meeting** for an automation), which starts on **Auto**, and **Elsewhere**, which starts on **Review**.
- **AI apps** such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor follow **Settings → AI Apps → Changes from AI Apps → Apply Changes Without Asking**. It is off by default, so every change waits. Turned on, edits and new notes from AI apps apply at once; moves and deletes still ask.

## What can be changed

- **Markdown notes** (`.md`) only. PDFs, Word files, decks and images are read, never changed.
- **Only in folders set to Can edit** in **Settings → AI Apps → Folder Access**. Folders set to **Read only** can be read and searched, and **Hidden** ones are never seen. See [Folder access](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/folder-access/).
- **Inside the vault's hidden `.samurai/` folder**, only the assistant's memory: About You and each project's memory.
- **Transcripts and people** change through the app, not as files: fixing words, translating, moving a line to another speaker, or renaming a person in every meeting they speak in. A change to a transcript can't be kept while its meeting is processing: "Can be kept once processing finishes."

Folder access is checked again when you keep a change. If the folder is no longer **Can edit** by then, the change isn't applied and says "AI apps may no longer change this folder."

## The change card

In a chat, each change appears as a card under the step that proposed it. The card shows the file's name and where the change stands, with how many places it adds and removes text (such as `+3 −1`), or where a move goes.

- While it waits: **Keep** applies it, **Discard** drops it.
- Once applied: **Undo**.
- Click the card to open the change in place, line by line.
- The **⋯** menu has **Review…**, the full review, and, once the change is applied, **Open**, which opens the note.

A change to memory is named for what it is: "What it remembers about you" or "What it remembers for this project".

What the card's status means:

| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| **Waiting for you** | Nothing is written yet. |
| **Applied** | It's in your vault. **Undo** is offered. |
| **Applied, merged with your edits** | The note had changed since the assistant read it; the change went in around your edits. |
| **Discarded** | You dropped it, or the assistant withdrew it. |
| **Not applied** | It couldn't go in without overwriting something; the reason is given. |
| **Undone** | It was applied, then undone. |
| **Could not undo** | Undoing it would have overwritten something you wrote since. |
| **Changed again below** | The assistant reworked it before you decided. The later card holds the whole change: decide that one. |

## Reviewing a change

**Review…** opens the full review. Its title says who wants to do what, such as "Assistant wants to edit Project plan".

- **An edit** shows the note's Markdown with the changed words marked. Each changed region, labelled **Line 12** or **Lines 12–15**, has its own **Keep** and **Discard**. Everything starts kept: discard the parts you don't want.
- **A new note, or one being deleted,** is shown whole, as it reads. **Preview** and **Source** switch between the formatted note and its text.
- **A change to several files** lists them on the left. Keep or discard each one.
- **A transcript change** may say "Times on 3 lines are estimated from the text, not heard in the recording." Check those times against the audio.

The main button names what it will do: **Create Note**, **Apply Edit**, **Move to Trash**, **Move**, **Apply to Transcript**, **Rename**, or **Apply 2 Changes** for several. Cmd+Enter on a Mac, or Ctrl+Enter on Windows, presses it. **Discard** (**Discard All** for several files) drops the whole change.

Once you decide, the review offers **Undo** (**Undo All**) and **Done**. When more changes are waiting, **Next Change** takes you to the next one, so you can go through them in one sitting.

## All changes to a meeting

When the assistant, an AI app or a skill has changed a meeting, or anything from it, **All changes** appears in the meeting's title bar, beside ⋯. Its tooltip says how many, such as "All changes (3 changes)", or "All changes — one waits for you".

- Click it for the list: who changed what, how long ago, and where it stands. Click one to open its review, where you can keep, discard or undo it.
- **Full history…**, at the end of the list, opens **All changes to this meeting**. It groups them under **Waiting** and **Done**, with those to the meeting itself under **This meeting** and those to other notes under **Elsewhere, from this meeting**. It also lists the documents the meeting's steps wrote, each with **How this was made**, which opens the conversation the step ran in.

While a change to a meeting waits, a bar above the meeting's tabs says so, such as "Assistant wants to edit Summary", with **Review…**, **Discard**, **Keep** and **All changes ›**. When a step of the meeting's processing is waiting on it, the bar starts "Processing waits for you:" (see [Processing profiles](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/profiles/#when-a-step-waits-for-your-review)). When a step applied changes by itself, the bar says what it changed, with **Review** and **Undo**.

## Changes from skills, automations and AI apps

Changes you can't see on screen announce themselves in a card at the bottom right of the window. Changes to the meeting on screen show in its own bar instead (see [All changes to a meeting](#all-changes-to-a-meeting)). The card shows changes from:

- an AI app waiting for your answer, which says "Claude Code is waiting";
- a skill that ran by itself;
- a chat that isn't on screen.

The card reads, for example, "Claude Code wants to edit Project plan", with the lines it changes and how many more are waiting. It has **Review…**, **Discard** and **Keep**. A delete has no **Keep** there: review it first. The card's × folds it into a small "2 changes waiting" pill until something new arrives.

An AI app that proposes a change waits up to about a minute for your answer. After that it carries on, and the change waits for you. A skill's run is a chat in the assistant, so you can open it later and see what it did.

**Settings → AI Apps → Changes from AI Apps** lists recent changes, each with **Review** while it waits, or **View** afterwards, where you can undo it.

## When the note changed in the meantime

You may edit a note, in Samurai Scribe or another editor, or a sync tool may change it, after the assistant read it and before you keep its change. Nothing you wrote is silently overwritten:

- When your edits and the change touch different lines, keeping the change merges it in: **Applied, merged with your edits**.
- When they touch the same place, the change is **Not applied**, with the reason, such as "The note was edited since, in the same place." Ask again, and the assistant works from the note as it is now.
- A delete or a move doesn't go ahead if the note changed since it was proposed: "The note was edited since; it was not deleted."

## Undo

Undo a change from its card, from the review (**Undo** or **Undo All**), from a meeting's **All changes**, or from the list in **Settings → AI Apps → Changes from AI Apps**.

- **An edit** goes back to the text before, keeping what you wrote since. If your later edit is in the same place, the undo stops: **Could not undo**.
- **A new note** moves to the Trash. If you edited it since, it is kept.
- **A delete** puts the note back where it was.
- **A move** moves the note back.

The record of changes is kept on this computer, with the chats, so undo a change on the computer where it was made.

## Rewind a chat

To take a chat back to an earlier point, hover over a question you asked and click **Rewind to here** ("undo what came after, and edit this"). **Rewind to here?** says what will happen:

- the question and everything after it are removed from the chat;
- changes the assistant made from there on are undone, and any still waiting are discarded;
- anything you wrote since is kept;
- your question goes back in the box, to change and send again.

If a change couldn't be undone because you edited the same place since, a message names the note it kept.

Rewind reaches your vault only. Something a [connection](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#connection) already did in another service, such as an issue created in Linear, stays done, and so does an email you opened and sent from your mail app.

## Deleted notes

A note the assistant deletes goes to your computer's Trash (the Recycle Bin on Windows), so you can restore it from there as well as with **Undo**. Where there's no system Trash, as on some network drives, it goes to a trash folder inside the vault's hidden `.samurai/` folder instead.

## Who may change which folders

What the assistant and AI apps may change is set folder by folder in **Settings → AI Apps → Folder Access**: **Can edit**, **Read only** or **Hidden**. The mode decides whether a change waits; folder access decides whether it can be proposed at all. A rule applies to its folder and everything in it. [Folder access](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/folder-access/) has the defaults and how to change them.