Copy Diff Apply Workflows

A copy, diff, apply workflow gives the agent a copy of the project and keeps the real project untouched until changes are reviewed. The agent can make broad edits in the copy. The human or wrapper then decides what returns to the original workspace.

Yoloai is the clearest example in this research. It creates an isolated copy, runs an agent, shows the diff, and applies selected results. This is weaker than a strong VM by itself if networking is open, but it is useful for protecting the real working tree.

This pattern is different from mounting the real project into a virtual machine. A mount can be safer for setup speed and state sharing, but the agent can still write directly to the mounted files. The choice is like choosing between a photocopy and the original document.

Sources

• • source analysis.
• • source analysis.