> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.docwriter.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# External edits

> Use another editor without losing changes.

## Start watch mode

```sh theme={null}
docwriter --watch ~/writing/my-project
```

Watch mode reports changes to Markdown, text, JSON, YAML, and YML files. It ignores implementation and runtime folders such as `.git` and `.docwriter`.

## How reload works

The command line watcher sends a reload event to the browser. DocWriter refreshes the file tree and remounts the active tab from the server.

The server ignores file events that repeat a recent DocWriter flush, which prevents a reload loop while you type.

## Which copy wins

When a tab is hydrated, DocWriter compares the file modification time with the latest saved Yjs update. A newer disk file with different content replaces the stale update log after a small clock skew allowance.

Watch mode is a reload system, not a text merge system. Avoid editing the same passage in two editors at the same moment.

## Git changes

DocWriter does not pull a repository automatically. Pull before the writing session, resolve conflicts in Git, then let DocWriter reload the resulting files.