NonDev Apps

Day 13 of 21

When AI goes wrong — the exact recovery process

Goal: AI will get things wrong. This is normal. Today you learn the exact 4-step process that recovers any broken session in minutes and stops the panic before it starts.

What to do

01

Create a recovery practice branch

Open GitHub Desktop. Create a branch called "day-13-recovery-practice." Make sure this is the active branch before continuing.

02

Ask Claude Code to make one change

Start Claude Code. Ask it to make one small, specific change — for example, change the color of the homepage button.

03

Ask for three changes at once — and watch

Now type a prompt that asks for three different things at the same time. On purpose. Observe what happens:

Change the homepage background color to light blue, change the font to Georgia, and add a new section called Newsletter below the footer.
04

Stop and identify the problem prompt

Stop typing immediately. Look back at your session. Which prompt caused a problem? The answer is almost always the one that asked for more than one thing at once.

05

Go back to your safe branch

Open GitHub Desktop. Switch back to "main" (not day-13-recovery-practice). Your working code is right there — untouched.

06

Rewrite the prompts — one at a time

Create a new branch "day-13-fixed-approach." Start Claude Code fresh. Use the 4-part formula and make one change per prompt. Compare the results to the three-at-once approach.

Expected result

You intentionally broke a session, practised the 4-step recovery, switched back to your safe branch, and rewritten the prompts correctly.

Key takeaway

  • When something goes wrong: stop immediately, find the last prompt that caused it, go back to your branch, rewrite the prompt with more detail. That four-step process recovers every broken session.
When AI goes wrong — the exact recovery process — NonDev Apps