Which documents keep a version history

1. What you'll see

   You open the History of a document and the list is empty, or docly history answers that the document is not versioned. Or you expected to roll back a file a script wrote, and there is nothing to roll back to.

2. What's actually happening

   Docly stores a version of a document each time it is saved, but only when both of these are true:

   Condition	Where it is set
   The document's schema has EnableVersioning turned on	The schema document
   The workspace's subscription includes Revisions	The subscription (depends on the plan)

   Most files on a site have a schema, and it versions. A file is stored with the schema its extension maps to. The platform schemas all have EnableVersioning on:

   Schema	Files
   Code File	Text files: .hash, .js, .css, .html, .json, .md, .svg, .txt and other code and config formats
   Uploaded Image	Images
   Uploaded File	Other uploads (PDF, ZIP, binary files)

   For an upload, the version holds the document's values, which point to the stored file. The file itself is kept as long as a version refers to it, so an older version can be restored with its file.

   A workspace can override a platform schema with its own schema of the same name; then that schema's EnableVersioning decides.

   Documents without a schema have no history at all. The usual source is a script: docly.saveFile(path, data) without a schema creates a schemaless file (this is how counters, logs and cached JSON are meant to be stored). Saving such a file overwrites the previous content. docly history shows Versioned: false for them.

   The rule is the same for every way a document is written: the editor, the docly CLI and MCP, the AI assistant, unzipping, package installs and your own scripts. None of them can create a version the rule does not allow, and none of them skips one it does.

   Turning Revisions off stops new versions only. The versions that already exist are kept and can still be opened, compared and restored. The History dialog says when the subscription has turned versioning off, so an empty list is not mistaken for a document that never changed.

3. What to do

   Read and compare versions

   In the editor, open History on the document. From the command line:

   docly history <document>                      # list the versions
   docly history <document> --version 3            # print version 3
   docly history <document> --version 3 --diff     # what changed since version 3
   docly history <document> --version 3 --label "before redesign"
   docly history <document> --version 3 --out old.json

   To restore an older version from the command line, write it to a file with --out and put it back with docly put. Restoring creates a new version; nothing in the history is removed.

   Still review before you save

   A version lets you go back after a mistake has gone live; it does not stop the mistake from going live. Templates and scripts are where a mistake takes a site down, so work on them in a docly CLI working copy and use docly diff before anything is pushed — see Use a docly CLI working copy instead of git and Work safely on a live site.

   Choose versioning for your own schemas

   Set EnableVersioning on schemas whose documents people edit and may want to undo: content pages, settings, data records. Leave it off for documents that scripts rewrite constantly (counters, logs, caches) — every save is a stored copy. The same goes for files your scripts save: give them no schema when they change all the time and need no history.

Last reviewed 23 Oct 2026