I've built something very similar but am further along (https://github.com/stravu/crystal). I understand the desire to do your own thing, but if you are interested in joining forces and contributing I would love to have you. I think we were thinking along very similar lines.
Hi OP, can you tell me how you got started to build tool like this? From what I understand, you are leveraging git worktree under the hood and using LLM agent that work in CLI to maintain 'branch' of version being produced. depending on which agent produces the best version of code, you pivot to that one. And Fleetcode provider solution to manage this.
Did you use TypeScript to build FleetCode because of electron app?
Take a look at https://conductor.build/ - they really pioneered this whole direction of using git worktrees. Cursor will soon look like their app, Opencode will soon look like their app, etc.
I tried that, I couldn't get it to authenticate properly since I need to run some commands before running claude code. I also don't like that they rolled an entire UI when the terminal UI is good enough, it's just the parallelization of workflows that needed automation. Git worktrees were launched in 2015
I am a Kanban person and I use Trello. I couldn't find a Trello MCP that worked so I built https://github.com/billyjones75/cueit which is basically a Kanban board for coding agents.
For anyone who either doesn't want a GUI-based workflow or wants a lot of custom behavior, I would encourage you to roll your own tool, either by yourself or with an agent. I did this at work and the tool became very usable in short order, building on itself in a virtuous cycle with built-in handling for the quirks of our engineering org and my own preferences. The codebase I ended up with was quite ugly, but the problem space of doing this for local dev is small enough to be manageable.
It does git worktree based parallelisation as well.
Edit: Ah! I see you mentioned several tools. Sorry I saw the repo and immediately thought of container use as I have been planning to give it a go this week. Did you happen to try it too? And where did it breakdown?
I'll take a look. I think containers are overkill for my type of workflow. I'm working on a project where dependencies don't change often so I'm not worried about a CLI agent installing something on my machine and breaking things.
This is cool, except I don’t want to run multiple copies of my dev stack.
GitButler does this cool thing where you can work on multiple branches at the same time, applied to the same working directory. For example you can work on the css while an agent works on the admin panel on a separate branch. It would be cool to have this with a tool like FleetCode.
I couldn't figure out this part of GitButler. I downloaded it and tried it (since I respect Scott Chacon and remember learning so much about Git from his well-written git guides).
But it was just a bit too much cognitive dissonance for me to try it.
It seems like the next big thing is parallel coding... I've tried GitButler, Spectator, Vibe-Kanban, and Conductor in the past week. And there is now FleetCode.
I liked Spectator's idea (use a separate docker container for each) but it didn't quite work right. So back to worktrees which seem to work just fine.
At some point, we will probably consolidate on 2-3 dominant tools in this space.
I wonder if even work trees will be needed if we can do a "create a copy-on-write version of my code folder" which would result in nearly zero-cost copies of the repo.
Somehow the GitButler workflow works great for me and it is the first VC software that made me drop Magit after a decade of daily use.
I do not use it collaboratively. I use it to continuously ship smaller things while working on bigger pieces and I constantly move independent changes around to different “lanes” to ship frequently as parts of my work mature.
With Magit I used staging area and amended commits continuously. With GitButler I “assign” files or chunks by dragging them into lanes as I am happy with the changes, and when I have a logical unit I commit it. Having this multiple staging areas has been a great workflow improvement as well.
can you elaborate why you don't want to run multiple copies of your dev stack? is it because you want to run your app from one place but be able to test multiple changes, vs having to install deps and start it from multiple folders?
Former. Otherwise I would need to have multiple database instances running, each with its own data and migrations to keep in sync. Plus I would need to re-do local env vars to hook all of this up for each worktree etc. And I often want to know how these branches play together, with GitButler I can bring these branches in and out with a single “apply to workspace” click.
Is this based on a single provider? Could you explain how it differentiates itself from competing solutions? Perhaps an end-to-end workflow walkthrough or a short video would be helpful to understand the process before attempting to implement it. Thank you for open-sourcing the code.
Not based on a single provider, I need to add more providers but basically supporting a provider is as simple as adding the relevant shell command for the CLI agent(claude for CC, codex for OpenAI etc). I'll try making a video at some point.
I'm not trolling at all, I genuinely liked that it's not some pay-to-use, SaaS, startup or whatever, but an actual simple and functional tool, free, open source, documented.
I've built something very similar but am further along (https://github.com/stravu/crystal). I understand the desire to do your own thing, but if you are interested in joining forces and contributing I would love to have you. I think we were thinking along very similar lines.
Hi OP, can you tell me how you got started to build tool like this? From what I understand, you are leveraging git worktree under the hood and using LLM agent that work in CLI to maintain 'branch' of version being produced. depending on which agent produces the best version of code, you pivot to that one. And Fleetcode provider solution to manage this.
Did you use TypeScript to build FleetCode because of electron app?
Take a look at https://conductor.build/ - they really pioneered this whole direction of using git worktrees. Cursor will soon look like their app, Opencode will soon look like their app, etc.
I tried that, I couldn't get it to authenticate properly since I need to run some commands before running claude code. I also don't like that they rolled an entire UI when the terminal UI is good enough, it's just the parallelization of workflows that needed automation. Git worktrees were launched in 2015
Sounds good
I think if Atlassian could really build something like Vibe-Kanban right into JIRA, it would be absolutely incredible.
Then we wouldn't need our Kanban board AND a separate board for just that.
Or I guess if these tools integrated into JIRA and suggested tickets, that could be nice.
I am a Kanban person and I use Trello. I couldn't find a Trello MCP that worked so I built https://github.com/billyjones75/cueit which is basically a Kanban board for coding agents.
You should check out their MCP server: https://support.atlassian.com/atlassian-rovo-mcp-server/docs...
I’ve been using it for months. It’s great. But it actually stopped working today (giving many 503 errors). Not sure why.
oh, and also closed source
It seems like there are a bunch of tools more or less converging on this sort of workflow - see:
https://github.com/stravu/crystal
https://github.com/imbue-ai/sculptor
https://github.com/omnara-ai/omnara
For anyone who either doesn't want a GUI-based workflow or wants a lot of custom behavior, I would encourage you to roll your own tool, either by yourself or with an agent. I did this at work and the tool became very usable in short order, building on itself in a virtuous cycle with built-in handling for the quirks of our engineering org and my own preferences. The codebase I ended up with was quite ugly, but the problem space of doing this for local dev is small enough to be manageable.
I like that it’s a UI.
Dagger has a nice solution for this in this space called Container Use - https://container-use.com/introduction
It does git worktree based parallelisation as well.
Edit: Ah! I see you mentioned several tools. Sorry I saw the repo and immediately thought of container use as I have been planning to give it a go this week. Did you happen to try it too? And where did it breakdown?
I'll take a look. I think containers are overkill for my type of workflow. I'm working on a project where dependencies don't change often so I'm not worried about a CLI agent installing something on my machine and breaking things.
This is cool, except I don’t want to run multiple copies of my dev stack.
GitButler does this cool thing where you can work on multiple branches at the same time, applied to the same working directory. For example you can work on the css while an agent works on the admin panel on a separate branch. It would be cool to have this with a tool like FleetCode.
I couldn't figure out this part of GitButler. I downloaded it and tried it (since I respect Scott Chacon and remember learning so much about Git from his well-written git guides).
But it was just a bit too much cognitive dissonance for me to try it.
It seems like the next big thing is parallel coding... I've tried GitButler, Spectator, Vibe-Kanban, and Conductor in the past week. And there is now FleetCode.
I liked Spectator's idea (use a separate docker container for each) but it didn't quite work right. So back to worktrees which seem to work just fine.
At some point, we will probably consolidate on 2-3 dominant tools in this space.
I wonder if even work trees will be needed if we can do a "create a copy-on-write version of my code folder" which would result in nearly zero-cost copies of the repo.
Somehow the GitButler workflow works great for me and it is the first VC software that made me drop Magit after a decade of daily use.
I do not use it collaboratively. I use it to continuously ship smaller things while working on bigger pieces and I constantly move independent changes around to different “lanes” to ship frequently as parts of my work mature.
With Magit I used staging area and amended commits continuously. With GitButler I “assign” files or chunks by dragging them into lanes as I am happy with the changes, and when I have a logical unit I commit it. Having this multiple staging areas has been a great workflow improvement as well.
can you elaborate why you don't want to run multiple copies of your dev stack? is it because you want to run your app from one place but be able to test multiple changes, vs having to install deps and start it from multiple folders?
Former. Otherwise I would need to have multiple database instances running, each with its own data and migrations to keep in sync. Plus I would need to re-do local env vars to hook all of this up for each worktree etc. And I often want to know how these branches play together, with GitButler I can bring these branches in and out with a single “apply to workspace” click.
thanks for clarifying. I'll take a look into supporting this
Is this based on a single provider? Could you explain how it differentiates itself from competing solutions? Perhaps an end-to-end workflow walkthrough or a short video would be helpful to understand the process before attempting to implement it. Thank you for open-sourcing the code.
Not based on a single provider, I need to add more providers but basically supporting a provider is as simple as adding the relevant shell command for the CLI agent(claude for CC, codex for OpenAI etc). I'll try making a video at some point.
You may have an issue with this name. It's easily confused with the Fleet code editor with AI assistant from JetBrains.
I normally just use multiple terminal tabs, but I never knew about worktrees; that’s super useful.
yeah I was doing the same and it was working okay, but was hard to work in a truly parallel fashion due to agents making conflicting changes
I tend to not do this often but I will certainly check out the project.
Looks good! I'll give it a shot.
thanks! all feedback appreciated!
Why don't you join forces with https://happy.engineering/?
Woah that's super cool, like that they describe clearly how the relay works and how to spawn yours.
Not sure if you're trolling: https://happy.engineering/docs/how-it-works/
I'm not trolling at all, I genuinely liked that it's not some pay-to-use, SaaS, startup or whatever, but an actual simple and functional tool, free, open source, documented.
Then I misinterpreted your message, sorry (:
Looks cool! I don't personally have the need to code from anywhere besides my laptop though
nice, didn't knew this tool either
I think it works thru a MCP to use it on your mobile device or am I mistaken?