Anthropic has developed Scion, a custom version control system designed to replace Git across the company. Unlike Git, Scion operates entirely through API calls and requires constant internet connectivity, eliminating the need to maintain local repository copies on developer machines.
The system delivers remarkable performance improvements. Scion reduced CPU and memory usage on synchronization servers by 200 times and accelerated code checkout for continuous integration by approximately 100 times—bringing operations from minutes down to seconds. A team of seven developers, supported by Claude Mythos, built Scion to handle Anthropic's explosive growth in AI-generated code production, which surged roughly 1,100 percent between May and September.
This move reflects a broader shift in how companies manage version control as AI becomes central to their development workflows. By designing Scion specifically for high-volume, AI-assisted code generation, Anthropic created a system optimized for speed and resource efficiency rather than backward compatibility with traditional Git workflows.