mrq + Aider

Why Aider Needs Backup Protection

Aider is a powerful terminal-based AI coding assistant that can edit multiple files at once. It integrates directly with your git repo and can make substantial changes quickly.

Aider does create git commits automatically, which provides some protection. However:

• Commits can be noisy and clutter your history
• Reverting means dealing with git revert/reset
• Sometimes you want to undo multiple Aider commits at once
• Git commits don't capture your mental checkpoint of "I liked it here"

mrq provides a parallel layer of protection that's independent of git.

How mrq Works with Aider

Both tools are terminal-native, so they work well together. mrq monitors your files in the background while you interact with Aider.

# Terminal 1: Start mrq
mrq watch

# Terminal 2: Run Aider
aider

Or use daemon mode:

mrq watch --daemon
aider

When mrq Helps

Multi-Commit Recovery

You've been working with Aider for 20 minutes. It's made 8 commits. The last few took a wrong turn. With git, you'd need to figure out which commits to revert. With mrq:

mrq history
mrq restore def456   # Go back to when things were good

Pre-Session Checkpoints

Before starting an Aider session, mrq captures your clean state. If the entire session doesn't work out, you can restore to before it started.

Quick Experiments

Want to try a risky refactor? With mrq, you can restore in seconds without thinking about git.

Recovery Flow

$ mrq history

Recent Snapshots
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  15:45:23  abc123  Aider refactored error handling
                    +156 lines, -89 lines across 8 files

  15:38:12  def456  Added logging middleware
                    +67 lines, -12 lines across 3 files

  15:32:45  ghi789  Initial cleanup
                    +23 lines, -45 lines across 2 files
────────────────────────────────────────────────────

$ mrq restore def456
✓ Restored to snapshot def456
✓ Current state backed up as jkl012

mrq vs Aider's Git Commits

Feature	Aider Git	mrq
Capture method	Per-prompt commit	Continuous monitoring
History visibility	Git log	CLI + Dashboard
Recovery	git revert/reset	mrq restore
Multi-change undo	Manual selection	Single command

Use both. Aider's commits are good for tracking what the AI did. mrq is for quick recovery when you don't want to think about git.

Related Resources

• Recover from AI mistakes - General recovery guide
• mrq vs Git - When to use each
• Documentation - Full reference
• All integrations - Other AI tools

Get Started

npm install -g mrq-cli@latest
mrq login
mrq watch