loom

a loom is a tree-structure of possible futures extending from the root string, that enables the user to:

- generate a continuation as node underneath its parent node
- reroll / mu a node to attach a new possible child to its parent
- navigate / interact w prior branches
- (optionally) insert their own text into the tree
- (ideally) merge nodes together, but you can also do this outside the tool

ofc this is most straightforwardly implemented by something like loomsidian, but the chatgpt interface is also loom-complete, or at least used to be, if awkwardly (you can regenerate, you can use the little arrows to navigate between versions, you can speak, you can edit your own messages and use the arrows there as well), though fork points are limited to message boundaries which isn't ideal

claude code likewise with message editing, checkpointing, and session resumption can be whacked into the same shape

even something like git can be conceptualized as a loom for software, where (at least until recently) the token generating process was a human, not a model. but same general idea. it's about navigating over and manipulating a tree of possible futures. this is ofc a very useful concept for language models!