Lost Track of What Claude Changed Three Prompts Ago? Open /diff and Pick the Turn.

At a glance

• /diff shows every change in your working tree without leaving Claude Code: the edits Claude made plus anything else you have not committed.
• A source picker narrows the view to the edits from a single prompt, labeled T1, T2 and so on.
• The ask button attaches one file's diff to your next prompt, so you can question a change without pasting it.

Claude has been at it for twenty minutes. You asked for a fix, then a test, then a rename, and now git status lists eleven files. Something broke the build, and you cannot remember which prompt touched the config file. So you open a second terminal and scroll through git diff, matching hunks to prompts from memory. Claude Code can show you the changes, sorted by the prompt that caused them, right next to the chat.

Why it matters

The commands reference puts /diff first under "Before you ship." A plain git diff mixes everything together: Claude's edits from every prompt and your own uncommitted work. Once Claude has edited files, /diff offers one view per prompt that led to edits. That turns "what did Claude do?" into "what did Claude do when I asked for the rename?"

Our reading: check the turn view right after any prompt that touched more files than you expected. Pushing back on one turn beats untangling eleven files later.

How to review Claude's changes by turn

We built these steps from Anthropic's docs and have not run them in a live session.

1. Run /diff in your session. In fullscreen rendering it opens a panel beside the conversation that stays open and updates as Claude works. In the classic renderer it opens a dialog above the prompt.
2. Pick the turn. In the panel, click the source picker in its header. In the dialog, press Tab to reach it. Choose T1, T2 and so on with Up and Down, then press Enter. Current takes you back to the full working tree.
3. Read a file. In the dialog, select it with Up and Down and press Enter, then Esc to go back to the list. In the panel, click its row.
4. Ask about it. Click ask next to a file name in the panel, or press Tab in a file's diff in the dialog and then Enter. Claude Code attaches that file's diff to your next prompt, so you can type "why did this change?" and nothing else.
5. Widen the comparison when you need to. In the panel, Ctrl+X B cycles from this session's changes, to all uncommitted changes, to everything since your branch split from the default branch. Claude Code remembers the choice per repository.

/tui fullscreen    # optional: relaunch in fullscreen, conversation intact
/diff              # open the panel (fullscreen) or the dialog (classic)
Tab                # dialog: move to the source picker
Up, Down, Enter    # choose T1, T2 and so on, or Current
Enter, then Esc    # dialog: open a file's diff, then back to the list
Ctrl+X B           # panel: session, uncommitted, or since branch split
/diff              # panel: run again to close it

Gotchas

• No side panel? It needs fullscreen rendering, a git repository, a terminal at least 110 columns wide and Claude Code v2.1.287 or later. Fullscreen is still a research preview, and /tui default switches back. In the classic renderer, /diff opens the dialog instead, which offers the same turn views.
• Older install? Treat v2.1.287, the version the docs list, as the safe minimum. The changelog lists a diff panel beside the conversation as added in v2.1.260; our reading is that this was an earlier build of it.
• A change is missing from the turn view. Turn views come from Claude's file edits, not from git. A file Claude changed through a shell command shows up only under Current.
• Test files seem to be missing. The panel skips test files and generated files, and folds changes from before this session into one line at the bottom. Click either count line to expand it.
• Submodule edits do not appear. A submodule shows as one entry, and only when the commit it points to changes.
• The panel keeps opening by itself. After you open it once with /diff, later sessions open it as soon as Claude edits a file in any terminal wide enough. Close it and it stays closed until you run /diff again.

Sources:

• Interactive mode, Review changes with /diff, Claude Code docs
• Commands reference, Claude Code docs
• Fullscreen rendering, Claude Code docs
• Claude Code changelog, v2.1.260 entry

Recommended AI prompt

Copy this paragraph into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, or whatever AI you use.