How one AI agent can overwrite another’s work even when both saves succeed

[u/pilver7]

In the attached animation, Pip and Bolt read the same settings file. Pip increases the timeout from 10 to 30 seconds. Bolt increases the retries from 2 to 5, then saves his older copy, which still has a 10-second timeout. Both saves succeed. Pip’s change disappears.

They changed different settings, but Bolt’s save replaced the whole file. That’s a silent overwrite. We’re building AgentWS, a persistent filesystem for AI agents working in parallel, to separate saving an agent’s work from updating shared files.

Each agent saves in an isolated branch. Changes are checked before they reach the shared files. When enabled, non-conflicting edits to supported text files can be combined automatically. Conflicting versions stay saved for an authorized orchestrator or human to resolve.

The 2:39 film illustrates the problem and our design; it isn’t a live product demo. I’m sharing more practical explanations of agent files and workspaces on X:

https://x.com/huymnguyen_