# BackUpper adds cheap backup layer for coding agents

> Researchers introduce BackUpper, a plug‑in that lets AI coding assistants back up code changes before they cause regret, at about $0.014 per task.

Oossa · 2026-10-22 · https://oossa.com/en/backupper-adds-cheap-backup-layer-for-coding-agents

A team led by Xu Li released BackUpper, a harness plug‑in for coding agents. It watches every tool call and saves the affected files before they are altered. In tests on RegretBench – 205 real‑world coding tasks where developers later wished they had saved state – BackUpper prevented all regret moments and restored the original state with 92.2% similarity. The system costs roughly $0.014 per task and uses seven times fewer tokens than a self‑backup baseline.

## The facts

- BackUpper restores states with 92.2% average similarity on RegretBench.
- The backup layer costs about $0.014 per task.

## Why it matters

Developers using AI code assistants can avoid losing work and costly re‑writes, because BackUpper makes reversions cheap and reliable.

## Sources & references

1. [Back Up Before You Regret: Measuring Backup Awareness and Automating Backup in Coding Agents](https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.28934) – arXiv, 2026-10-22

Last updated: 2026-10-22