---
title: "Non-dev knowledge work needs version control"
date: 2026-03-27
canonical: https://solmaz.io/x/2037446862484001103/
x_url: https://x.com/onusoz/status/2037446862484001103
license: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
---

There is a desperate upcoming need for version controlling non-dev knowledge work. Git for non-devs. Otherwise non-devs won't be able to use agents to their full extent

Non-dev knowledge work is notoriously bad at being version controlled. You cannot UNDO edits to all MS word, excel or ppt files in an org as easily you can with something like git

We know that agents will be ubiquitous. We also know they make mistakes, and people will want to undo their work regularly, once they make changes to a bunch of files. Well, they can't. They also don't have pull requests, or a way to resolve conflicts after simultaneous edits

All these problems were solved by developers. We are extremely good at this

The only non-dev tool I know that could do this at scale is Notion, and that is not used by enterprise as much as MS office. Notion also doesn't have branches, pull requests and reviews AFAIK

Markdown and git is probably not it. I wish it were. But it is too complicated for non-devs

Onedrive or other file backup systems are also not it. Are you gonna save a copy of a 100mb ppt every time someone changes a slide??? Let's say you find a way to compress it efficiently. Will you be able to get a single pointer to a state like we can in git?

Agents need precision. Agents need consensus, they need to be able to know ground truth. They need to be able to tell what anything was at a given time. NOTHING in current MS stack currently allows it

Agents won't care about your legacy systems. There will be new file formats, systems, knowledge stack, and companies who adopt them will destroy your business

If MS office is going to die, it will do so because of this