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. 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.

You can search and filter directions, rename them, and remove the ones you’ve ruled out.

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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.

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Committing

Committing writes the chosen variant into your project:

• Existing project — the variant’s changes are applied to your working files. Review them like any other change.
• Fresh project — Rivet writes the generated site or app to its destination and keeps a dev server running for the preview.

Commit from the UI, by asking your agent, or with rivet variants commit <variantId>.

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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, share 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.

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