# Source control & Observable **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [April 22, 2020, 12:07am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/source-control-observable/3117 "2020-04-22T00:07:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 6
**Author:** ![cesutherland](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/cesutherland/32/2975_2.png) [@cesutherland](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/cesutherland)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 11:16pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/source-control-observable/3117/6 "2020-04-22T23:16:43Z")
@jashkenas I don’t think I want an API (can’t believe I just typed that). My primary use-case is publishing a notebook or a subset of cells in a designed format to a website or application. I am using the Runtime to run cells reactively (notebook distiller tho 😮). No trouble pulling down the notebook or using the Runtime. But iteration from there was tedius; it felt like write once. Secondary use-case is as an author (this is aesthetic, but maybe helps with the above). Lack of annotated history has tripped me up a couple times in Observable itself. The web UI is beautiful, and incredibly powerful for getting oriented in a new problem. But after orientation, in telling that problem’s story (or in particular stories) I want to refactor, extract things, share functionality. This feels more awkward and a lot more fragile than the honeymoon I just had with the problem when it was new. Conceptually I’m looking to move seamlessly between a notebook and local code, which I can refactor into from the notebook. The ideas from the VS plugin are compelling ([API Request - #4 by bgchen](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/api-request/3098/4)). I think any local notebook environment would get me a lot closer. Browser livereload & the runtime sounds complicated. Admittedly, this isn’t very concrete — I’m not even sure what text I would be editing, and with what. I’ll be tinkering with it irregardless, but really appreciate your thoughts! --- _[View the full topic](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/source-control-observable/3117)._