Comparing variants

Once a run starts, the Rivet browser UI is where you judge the results.

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The variants panel

Each direction in the active session appears as a card with:

• Title and subtitle — the short label and one-line brief written when the run started, so directions stay easy to tell apart (“Editorial serif” vs “Dense data grid”).
• Live preview — every variant is real code running in its own workspace, so the preview is your actual app, not a mockup. The preview opens on the page the variant changed, not your home page. Click a card to view that direction full size, or use split view to compare two at once.
• Status — provisioning, building, ready, or failed with a reason.

Switch to Original and back, and you stay on the page you were viewing. If Rivet can’t tell which page a variant changed, the preview opens your app’s usual entry page. You can search and filter directions, rename them, and remove the ones you’ve ruled out. Press Up or Down to move between directions. This works after you click into a preview too. Text fields keep their arrow keys.

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Refining a direction

When a direction is close but not right, refine it instead of starting over:

“On the brutalist one — keep the layout, but tighten the vertical rhythm and try a warmer accent.”

Your agent points Rivet at that specific variant, and Rivet regenerates it in place, starting from its current state. Only what you asked about changes. You can also branch: “give me 2 variations of the editorial direction” creates new directions from the one you selected. Refining or branching keeps you on the same page. If a direction changed your pricing page, its new variations open there too, and your other pages stay as they were.

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Using a direction

Rivet doesn’t write directions into your project. When one wins, ask your agent to build it:

“Implement the editorial direction in my project.”

Your agent pulls the saved direction from Rivet and edits your files. Your prototype stays saved in Rivet either way.

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History

Every run is saved under .rivet/variants/ in your project, so past explorations survive restarts. The history view lists previous variant sets with their prompts and directions. Reopen one to review it or start a new run from a past direction. Each entry keeps a stable ID, so your agent can pull up the exact implementation later. If a past direction’s preview can’t start, it stays selected and shows the error from your dev server. Fix the issue and select it again to retry.

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