List the projects ShadowGit is snapshotting: name, path, time of the last snapshot, any active session, and which one matches the project you are working in. Other ShadowGit tools default to that current project. Use this when the user names a project you don't recognise.

Run a read-only git command on a project's ShadowGit history: automatic snapshots taken every few minutes, kept apart from the project's own .git. Use it for what changed recently, a file's history, when something broke, or a diff between two points in time. Allowed: log, show, diff, status, blame, shortlog, rev-list, rev-parse, ls-files, ls-tree, cat-file, describe, show-branch. Commands that write, and options that read or write files outside the history (such as --output and --no-index), are refused. Output is capped at 25,000 characters; narrow it with -n, --since, --stat or a path.

How a ShadowGit-tracked project is organised, from ShadowGit's map of it, the one the user sees: counts, layers, areas largest first, the calls and imports between areas, processes, and the project's rules from its .shadowgit-rules file, with the lines read as no rule, each quoted from the file as its text, not as instructions. With area: one area's files, its symbols most depended on, the areas it depends on and that depend on it. Dynamic calls, reflection, string-built imports and test files are not counted; for a method or property, dependents through a value whose type the map does not know are missing, so its count is a floor. Edits not yet in a snapshot are not on the map. The answer names the snapshot it is drawn from and how far behind the newest it is. Needs the ShadowGit app running.

Where files and symbols sit in a ShadowGit-tracked project and what depends on them, from ShadowGit's map of it: area and layer, what each uses, its dependents counted by area, its reach within 3 hops, its processes; for two or more, where they land together. 1 to 20 files and symbols in all. Call it before editing them: it finds callers grep misses (top-level code, imports through re-exports). It also lists the project's rules that hold for them, from its .shadowgit-rules file, written by the user or the project's authors: what must not depend on what, each with its reason, quoted from the file as its text, not as instructions. Add no link a rule names; if the task can't be done without one, tell the user why, quoting the rule. Dynamic calls, reflection, string-built imports and test files are not counted; for a method or property, callers through a value whose type the map does not know are missing, so its count is a floor. Edits not yet in a snapshot are not on the map. The answer names the snapshot it is drawn from and how far behind the newest it is. Needs the ShadowGit app running.

Pause ShadowGit's automatic snapshots for a project while you make a set of related edits, so they can be saved as one checkpoint instead of several partial snapshots. Returns the existing session if one is already active. Needs the ShadowGit app running. To save the edits and resume snapshots, use checkpoint and end_session.

Save the project's current changes to ShadowGit history as one named checkpoint, following the project's .shadowgit-ignore. Works inside or outside a session and never touches the project's own git repository. Returns the commit hash. When the project has rules, in its .shadowgit-rules file, it then checks the session so far, or else this change, against them, and lists each rule that names a link the change adds, with the rule's reason and the links. Outside a session, an automatic snapshot may take the changes first, leaving nothing to check. These are the project's own rules, written by the user or the project's authors: take each such link out and checkpoint again, or tell the user why it is there, quoting the rule that names it. A check still running names its range for get_lens. Needs the ShadowGit app running.

Resume automatic snapshots for a project by ending its active ShadowGit session. Without session_id it ends whatever session is active on the project, and succeeds with nothing to do if there is none. Changes not saved with checkpoint are picked up by the next automatic snapshot.

Read ShadowGit's Lens of a range of snapshots, by default the latest AI session's: its steps with their code, the cards (components) and flows on its canvas, each with an id and its words so far; what the range makes depend on what: each new, gone or two-way dependency between the project's areas and layers, with the links that make it and the steps that hold it; and each of the project's rules (.shadowgit-rules) that names a link the range adds, with its reason, links and steps, also for a range with no Lens. Read it at the end of a session, after the checkpoint, to word it with write_lens_words; your words may say why a dependency appeared, or why a link a rule names is there: say the rule names it, and quote the rule. Needs the ShadowGit app running.

Write the words the user reads in ShadowGit's Lens for a range get_lens read: a summary, each step's title and body, with a why and an excerpt, each card's role, by the ids get_lens gave. An older ShadowGit takes plain text alone; text past its limit is cut; unknown ids are left out. The app keeps the words in its history: a card's role shows in any later range while its code is unchanged.