Know What Rewind Can Restore

Before a refactor, decide what you would need to restore. Claude Code's rewind can recover tracked edits and conversation state; it cannot undo every effect of an experiment.

Shell changes and external actions need another recovery plan. Checkpoints also have retention limits. Keep a Git checkpoint, use disposable inputs, and inspect the restored files before continuing. The point is to make recovery deliberate, not to assume mistakes are free.

Claude Code's checkpointing documentation describes the tracked changes and exclusions.