The Time Graph HAT

Pillar Connection: This HAT is the direct implementation of our Time Graph pillar, ensuring every action is reversible, every decision is auditable, and nothing is ever lost.

Your Development Time Machine

The Time Graph HAT transforms your codebase from a snapshot into a living timeline. Every decision, every change, every bug becomes a node in an explorable graph that lets you travel through time to understand, debug, and even rewrite history.

Beyond Git History

Git shows you what changed. The Time Graph HAT shows you why, how, and what if:

• Decision Tracking: Every architectural choice recorded
• Impact Mapping: See how changes ripple through time
• Parallel Timelines: Explore alternate implementations
• Causal Debugging: Find root causes by traveling backward

The Fourth Dimension of Development

Traditional Version Control

main ──●──●──●──●──●── (current)
        └──●──●── (feature branch)

Linear. Flat. Limited.

Time Graph Reality

        ┌─ Decision: Use REST ─── Implementation A ─── Bug Found ───┐
        │                                                            │
main ───┼─ Decision: Use GraphQL ─ Implementation B ─── Success ────┼─── Merged
        │                                                            │
        └─ Decision: Use gRPC ──── Implementation C ─── Abandoned ───┘
              │                         │
              └── Why: Latency ────── Benchmark ──── Results

Multi-dimensional. Explorable. Understandable.

Real-World Powers

Scenario 1: The Production Mystery

Challenge: App crashes randomly in production. No pattern. No reproduction.

Time Graph Solution:

1. Navigate to crash timestamp
2. HAT shows all concurrent changes
3. Identify seemingly unrelated deploy
4. Trace impact through dependency graph
5. Find race condition introduced 3 weeks ago

Result: "Impossible" bug fixed in 30 minutes.

Scenario 2: The Architectural Debate

Challenge: "Why did we choose MongoDB over PostgreSQL?"

Time Graph Solution:

query: decision-node
topic: 'database-selection'
timestamp: '3-months-ago'

result:
  decision: 'MongoDB'
  reasons:
    - 'Flexible schema for rapid iteration'
    - 'Better horizontal scaling'
    - 'Team expertise'
  alternatives-explored:
    - PostgreSQL: 'Rejected: Schema migrations concern'
    - DynamoDB: 'Rejected: Vendor lock-in'
  participants: ['alice', 'bob', 'charlie']
  supporting-data: ['benchmark-results.json', 'cost-analysis.xlsx']

Result: Instant context for any technical decision.

Scenario 3: The Parallel Development

Challenge: Two features developed simultaneously are conflicting.

Time Graph Solution:

• HAT maintains parallel timelines
• Shows divergence points
• Identifies conflict sources
• Suggests merge strategies
• Simulates merge outcomes

Result: Confident merging without breaking either feature.

Advanced Capabilities

Causal Analysis

Not just "what broke" but "what caused what broke":

analysis: login-failure
symptoms:
  - "Users can't login"
  - 'Started 2024-01-15 14:30'

time-graph-trace:
  - 14:30: 'Login failures spike'
  - 14:25: 'API response times increase'
  - 14:20: 'Database query patterns change'
  - 14:15: 'ORM library updated'
  - 13:00: 'Dependency update merged'

root-cause: 'ORM update changed query generation'
fix: 'Rollback or patch query builder'

Temporal Queries

Ask questions across time:

# When did performance degrade?
hatcher time-graph query "response_time > 200ms" --first-occurrence

# Who has touched this file?
hatcher time-graph contributors "./src/auth.js" --with-context

# What changed between working and broken?
hatcher time-graph diff --from "last-working" --to "first-broken"

# Show all decisions about authentication
hatcher time-graph decisions --topic "auth" --timeline

Butterfly Effect Tracking

See how small changes cascade:

change: 'Update button color'
immediate-impact:
  - 'button.css modified'
cascade:
  - 'Component snapshot tests fail'
  - 'Visual regression detected'
  - 'Accessibility contrast warning'
  - 'Design system version bump'
  - 'All apps using design system need updates'
  - 'Marketing screenshots outdated'

Integration with Other HATs

The Time Graph HAT enhances everything:

• With Code HAT: Travel to when code was simpler
• With Gen HAT: See generation evolution
• With Visual HAT: Visual regression through time

Time Travel Operations

Checkpoint Creation

# Create a temporal checkpoint
hatcher time-graph checkpoint "Before major refactor"

# Create decision node
hatcher time-graph decision "Switching to microservices" \
  --reasons "Scale,Team autonomy" \
  --alternatives "Monolith,Serverless"

Timeline Navigation

# Go to specific point
hatcher time-graph goto "2024-01-15 14:00"

# Go to last working state
hatcher time-graph goto "last-green-ci"

# Compare timelines
hatcher time-graph compare "timeline-a" "timeline-b"

Temporal Debugging

# Bisect to find breaking change
hatcher time-graph bisect --good "v1.0" --bad "HEAD" --test "npm test"

# Replay execution at point in time
hatcher time-graph replay "crash-timestamp" --with-state

The Knowledge Preservation

The Time Graph HAT preserves institutional knowledge:

Never Lose Context

• Why was X deprecated?
• Who decided Y?
• What alternatives were considered?
• What problems did Z solve?

Onboarding Acceleration

New developers can:

• Explore decision history
• Understand evolution
• Learn from past mistakes
• See the full context

The Temporal Liberation

The Time Graph HAT isn't about dwelling on the past — it's about learning from it:

• No more archaeological debugging
• No more "nobody knows why"
• No more repeating mistakes
• No more context loss

Your code has a history. The Time Graph HAT makes it navigable.

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Ready to explore your code's timeline? Get Started with the Time Graph HAT

Navigate Your Code's Evolution

Travel through time to understand how and why your code evolved

Explore the Time Graph→

Every change has a story. Every decision has context.