Claude does not proactively sync files between local and server, creating confusion about which version is live

Severity: MEDIUM — Operational confusion, lost edits

What happened

The project had files both locally (C:\Users\sales\clawd\vegas-map\frontend\) and on a remote server (/opt/vegas-map/frontend/). Claude sometimes edited the local copy without deploying, sometimes edited the server directly, and sometimes confused which version was live.

This caused situations where:

• The server had a version Claude thought was local
• Local edits were never deployed to production
• When asked to restore "the working version," Claude restored a stale local copy instead of the live server version

Impact

• Confusion about which version is actually serving users
• Edits made on one side not reflected on the other
• Emergency restores pulled wrong version, making the outage worse
• User had to manually track which side had which version

Expected behavior

When a project has both a local directory and a remote server:

1. Claude should maintain a clear mental model of local vs. deployed state
2. After any local file write, Claude should ask or assume deployment is needed
3. When restoring, Claude should confirm WHICH copy to restore FROM and TO before acting

Requested resolution

• Refund of session credits lost to sync confusion and wrong-version restores
• Fix: Claude should be more explicit about local vs. deployed state, especially before any restore operation