I'm buying into this workflow more the more I use it, but the real gamechanger is (a) parallel threads in worktrees, with (b) enough lifecycle hooks to treat them similarly to spinning up a VM.

Specifically for me that means that after I create a worktree I get some local config files copied over and Postgres duplicating my local dev and test databases so I can test in isolation, and then when I close out a worktree it deletes those databases.

The best at that that I've found is Conductor, but I can't use it at work because we only have Copilot and they're locked to a Claude/Codex backend. Arbor is close, but it's not under as active development and has a lot of rough edges. Opencode GUI has create hooks but not teardown.

If Zed can hook that up _and_ also keep its great editor roots, that'll definitely be a game changer.

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Charlieholtz 32 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Love to hear it! (Conductor founder here).

This is helpful to know - we're working on adding more agents, Copilot and OpenCode harnesses are among the most popular requests.

We also recently built an escape hatch. If you turn on Settings → Experimental → Big Terminal Mode you can create new terminals in the center panel (with ⌘⇧T) and use any agent you'd like (Copilot, OpenCode, etc). It isn't the best experience because you don't get notifications etc (yet), but at least it lets you use the harness you'd like until we build out the first-class UI for it.

Send me feedback anytime, I'm charlie@conductor.build.

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sbysb 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You should check out Ouijit [1] - I use it regularly for work and it's nice because it focuses on the environment that you want, and just gives you a shell that you can use any tooling in, as well as VM isolation per worktree if needed.

[1]: https://github.com/ouijit/ouijit

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jdkoeck an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No need for any AI-specific tool, this is exactly what devcontainer is for! Just tell your agent to use devcontainer up (and docker compose down the other way).

	▲	donmcronald an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Devcontainers always disappointed me. The sales pitch is that everyone uses the same container, but that's not accurate. Everyone builds a container from the same config and it'll be similar, but it takes a ton of effort to make sure it's identical. The idea that a devcontainer gets built on-demand instead of checked out like 'docker pull ..." has always felt weird to me. It's so close to being awesome, but ends up being barely useful. Or maybe I'm wrong. Is there a way to checkout an immutable devcontainer?

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kippinsula 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

tried parallel agents for a sprint and bounced off it. the worktree dance is fine, real blocker for us was test data isolation. scoped postgres schemas per branch worked, but reasoning about which agent broke teh shared migration when three of them touch it got old fast. we just run one agent at a time now and go for a walk.

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maximilianroos an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

self-promotion, but check out worktrunk.dev

by far the most popular worktree manager

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rtfeldman 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The best at that that I've found is Conductor, but I can't use it at work because we only have Copilot and they're locked to a Claude/Codex backend.

FYI, you can use Copilot directly in Zed!

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anthony-eid 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We support create git worktree hooks too

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saturn_vk 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Is there an example of this?

	▲	jamie_ca 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The worktree create hook is documented https://zed.dev/docs/tasks?highlight=hook#hooks And then I guess setting up tasks for the cleanup part, but it'd be great to see that get automated too so I don't need to remember it.

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danelliot 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]