¶Worktrees & parallel agents

Conductor turns the single-agent workflow into something you can conduct: several Elyra agents running at once, each isolated on its own branch in a git worktree, with each branch's pull-request and CI status in view.

Three pieces work together — worktrees (isolation), the command center (presence), and GitHub PR status (where each branch stands.)

¶Git worktrees

A worktree is a second checkout of the same repository: its own directory and branch, sharing the repo's .git. That isolation is what lets multiple agents work different branches at once without colliding over files.

Open the panel from the 🌳 Worktrees toolbar button (or the command palette → Worktrees: parallel branches…). It's available for any git repository.

¶Creating a worktree

Type a branch name, optionally a base (defaults to HEAD), and choose how to open it:

• ＋ Terminal — create the worktree and open a terminal in it.
• 🤖 Agent — create the worktree and open an Elyra agent in it.

New worktrees are created in a sibling folder next to the repo:

<repo>.worktrees/<branch>/

Branch handling is automatic:

• An existing local branch is checked out into the new worktree.
• A branch that exists only on origin (e.g. a PR branch) is tracked from origin/<branch>, so the worktree has the real contents — not an empty new branch.
• Otherwise a new branch is created off the base.

¶Opening and removing

Each row offers 🖥 Terminal and 🤖 Agent to open that worktree, and 🗑 Remove for non-main worktrees. Removal keeps the branch — only the working copy goes. If the worktree has uncommitted changes, Conductor offers a forced remove.

¶Conflict warning — two worktrees touching the same file

Each refresh, the panel does a cheap check across every worktree of the repo: any file with uncommitted changes in more than one worktree right now shows up as a warning banner — ⚠️ 2 files with uncommitted changes in more than one worktree — listing the file and which branches are touching it. It's an early heads-up for exactly the situation worktrees are meant to avoid: two agents (or you and an agent) about to step on each other's edits before either side has committed. Read-only and best-effort — it only looks at working-tree status, not history, and never blocks anything.

¶Agent command center

With several agents running, you need to know — at a glance — which one needs you. Each agent reports a coarse state, in a small shared semantic vocabulary (blocked, working, done, idle) rather than raw colors, surfaced three ways:

• A dot on its tab: blue pulse = working, amber pulse = blocked (waiting on you), green = done (exited), grey = idle.
• The herd strip: every open agent gets its own glyph chip next to the tab strip — ⏸ blocked, ▶ working, ✓ done, ○ idle — with its title, so you see every agent at a glance across every project without opening anything. Blocked agents sort first. Click a chip to jump straight to it; more than six collapse into a +N chip that opens the full dashboard.

When an agent starts waiting while you're looking at another tab or app, you get a system notification (Agent needs you). See Elyra agent for how the state is derived.

¶Agent dashboard (multi-agent cockpit + auto-merge queue)

With several agents running across different worktrees, the herd strip is the at-a-glance view; click 🎛 Dashboard next to it (shown whenever at least one agent tab is open; also in the command palette — Agent dashboard…) for the full cockpit:

• Agents — every open agent tab, across every project and worktree, in one list: presence glyph (⏸ blocked / ▶ working / ○ idle / ✓ done), its owning project, the latest status line, and last activity ("2m ago"). Click a row to jump straight to that tab. Sorted so blocked agents float to the top — the ones costing you time.

• Ready to merge — an auto-merge queue: for every project behind an open agent, Conductor checks its open PRs and lists the ones that are not a draft and have all checks passing (no failing/pending checks). Each row shows the PR number/title, branch, check + review summary, and a Squash & merge button. Merging:

  1. Runs gh pr merge --squash --delete-branch (deletes the remote branch).
  2. Closes any agent tab(s) still open on that branch.
  3. Removes the local worktree, if there was one.

  Confirms before merging; a failed merge (e.g. a new commit landed, or a required check reappeared) shows an inline error and leaves the row in the queue.

Both panels are read-only observation plus explicit clicks — no AI, no background auto-merging without a click. Requires an authenticated gh for the merge queue; the agents list works regardless.

¶GitHub PR status

With an authenticated gh CLI, the worktree panel shows each branch's open pull request:

• Number and a link that opens the PR on GitHub.
• CI check rollup — passing (✓), failing (✗ N), or pending (○ N).
• Review state — approved (🟢) or changes requested (🔴).

Open PRs that don't have a worktree yet are listed separately, so you can check one out as a worktree (terminal or agent) in a single click. The full loop:

See a PR → spin up a worktree tracking it → drop an agent into it → watch its presence and CI status from the same window.

PR status is best-effort: if gh is missing or unauthenticated, no badges show and the worktree panel still works.

¶PR status on the tab itself

You don't have to open the Worktrees panel or the Agent dashboard to see CI status — a small colored dot appears directly on any terminal or agent tab whose folder is a worktree with an open PR: 🟢 green (all checks passing), 🔴 red (a check failed), 🟡 yellow (checks still pending). Hover it for the PR number/title. It refreshes in the background every 45s — same best-effort, read-only gh lookup as the panels above.

¶Related

• Elyra agent — the agent panel and the command center state model.
• Git — status in the sidebar and the in-app commit dialog.
• Tauri commands — git_worktree_list / git_worktree_add / git_worktree_remove / git_worktree_conflicts, detect_gh / gh_pr_list / gh_pr_merge.
• Database browser — Compare Schemas, the same "diff two connections" idea applied to table structure.