Worktrunk

Overview

Worktrunk is a CLI tool that makes Git worktrees practical for everyday development, especially when running multiple AI coding agents in parallel. Git’s native worktree feature gives each agent its own working directory so they don’t step on each other’s changes, but the raw commands are verbose and managing many worktrees is tedious. Worktrunk wraps the entire workflow into three intuitive commands — switch, list, and merge — with quality-of-life features that make managing 5-10+ parallel agents feasible.

Key Capabilities

Simplified worktree operations: Instead of typing git worktree add -b feat ../repo.feat && cd ../repo.feat, you type wt switch -c feat. The tool handles path computation, directory creation, and shell integration automatically. Listing worktrees shows CI status, AI-generated branch summaries, and diff stats at a glance. The merge command combines squash, rebase, and cleanup into a single operation.

AI-native features: Worktrunk generates commit messages from diffs using your configured LLM and produces per-branch summaries so you can quickly understand what each parallel agent is working on without reading code. The interactive picker shows live diff previews for navigating between workstreams.

Build performance: Build cache sharing via filesystem reflinks (APFS on macOS, btrfs/XFS on Linux) means switching to a new worktree doesn’t trigger a full rebuild. Each worktree can run its own dev server on automatically allocated unique ports.

Extensibility: A hook system fires on worktree events (create, switch, delete) for automating local setup tasks. Custom aliases with branch-scoped variables let you define project-specific shortcuts.

Use Cases

Worktrunk is built for developers who run multiple AI coding agents simultaneously — each agent gets its own worktree so changes stay isolated. It also suits anyone who works on multiple branches concurrently (reviewing PRs while developing features, running long tests on one branch while coding on another). Teams using Claude Code, Codex, or similar agents in parallel find it indispensable for managing the resulting branch proliferation.

Considerations

Worktrunk requires Git 2.38+ for worktree support. Shell integration (wt config shell install) is needed for directory-changing commands to work. Build cache sharing depends on filesystem support — APFS (macOS default), btrfs, or XFS with reflinks enabled. The tool is written in Rust and installs as a single binary with no runtime dependencies.

Who It’s For

Developers and engineering teams running parallel AI coding agents who need isolated working directories without the friction of raw Git worktree commands. Power users who work across multiple branches simultaneously. Anyone who wants their Git workflow to scale gracefully from one active branch to ten or more.