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Your first coding task

Use a repository you can afford to change — clone a small project of yours or make a scratch repo. The walkthrough below is a documented walkthrough example, not a captured qualified run: outcomes depend on your provider, model, and environment.

1. Prepare the environment

Section titled “1. Prepare the environment”

Start in the repository root of the Babel clone. Decide isolation before any mutating task:

  • Docker available and a sandbox image configured → keep the default safe_repo profile.
  • Trusted repo, no Docker → read Execution profiles carefully first. dev_local permits intrinsic inspection commands only; project-code tests and builds are denied without isolation. Do not treat dev_local as a way to unblock a coding run that isolation is blocking.

2. Start a chat session

Section titled “2. Start a chat session”
Terminal window
node .\babel-cli\dist\index.js interactive

Then give a small, concrete task:

> Fix the failing test in tests/utils.test.js

Watch the tool activity: Babel reads files, proposes edits, and runs checks. Tool approvals appear in the TUI under your configured permission behavior (/permissions).

3. Read the outcome honestly

Section titled “3. Read the outcome honestly”

Babel does not treat a model “I’m done” as success. Completion is gated by an honesty policy: execute tasks need real writes plus verification by authoritative project commands (your test runner). Possible terminal outcomes include:

  • Verified — required verification actually ran and passed.
  • Unverified patch — changes were made but verification did not substantively run. Treat this as “not done yet”: run the checks yourself.
  • Blocked — isolation unavailable, missing tools, or repeated verifier tampering can block the session. This is the harness working as designed.

4. Inspect and recover

Section titled “4. Inspect and recover”
/diff          inspect the latest changes
/checkpoint    mark a restore point
/restore       return to a checkpoint

From the CLI (not the TUI): node .\babel-cli\dist\index.js undo restores the last checkpoint. There is no /undo inside the TUI.

If your first session ends blocked or unverified, that is an honest result of this stage of the product — ordinary coding-loop reliability is under active qualification. See Troubleshooting for the common causes.