Anthropic Says It Replaced Git With Internal 'Scion' System Due to AI Code Volume
Anthropic reported that its daily code merges surged from 2,500 in May 2026 to over 30,000 by September, overwhelming its Git infrastructure. The company built a proprietary version control system called Scion with a team of seven in five months, claiming it reduced CPU and memory requirements by approximately 200 times. Scion remains internal-only.
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Anthropic stated that the rapid increase in code generated by AI models like Claude placed significant strain on its internal development infrastructure. According to the company, daily code merges rose from approximately 2,500 in May 2026 to more than 30,000 by September.
To address this scale, Anthropic assembled a team of seven engineers who developed and migrated to a new internal version control system named Scion within five months. The company claims that Scion reduces CPU and memory requirements by about 200 times compared to its previous Git mirroring infrastructure.
Scion is designed specifically for AI agents and automated jobs, supporting sparse and virtualized checkouts that allow clients to request only necessary files rather than entire repositories. Anthropic estimates that code checkout speeds improved by approximately 100 times, dropping from minutes to seconds.
Notably, Scion is currently an internal tool and is not available to the public. This case highlights that when AI becomes the primary code producer, traditional developer toolchains may become the new bottleneck.