One binary to manage every git worktree in every repo, with the setup already done.
gwm create feat 42 user-auth branches it, places it on disk, copies the files you told it to, runs the setup commands you configured, and links GitHub issue #42. Then bare gwm opens a TUI over all of them.
Written in Rust on vendored libgit2, so worktree operations are native rather than shelled out, and there is no gwq to install. git itself is still required on PATH for the operations that call it. Installs from Cargo, Homebrew, Scoop, Nix, aqua, the AUR, .deb and .rpm.
What you get that a git worktree add wrapper doesn't:
Bootstrap that actually runs your project. File copies with deny-list regexes (born from a real "AWS RDS credentials in a copied .env" incident), six lifecycle hook phases, stack presets for Laravel / Symfony / Node / Rust / Go / Python.
A TUI you can live in. Embedded lazygit and shell overlays, a details sidebar with CI state and working-tree file explorer, remappable keys, themes, command palette. Compact by default since 1.8.0: sections are delimited by a filled header line rather than a box rule, which buys back two rows and two columns each. [tui] layout = "bordered" restores the lazygit-style frames.
It knows which AI agent works where. Sessions from Claude Code, Codex, opencode and Mistral Vibe are detected from their on-disk artefacts (no process enumeration, Windows included; on Unix a dead recorded PID drops the session to idle at once) and surfaced everywhere: an AGENT column in the table and TUI, a detail overlay on a, gwm agents with manual pinning, the JSON/daemon field and the statusline (fed by the daemon transport everywhere: a unix socket, or a named pipe on Windows).
A machine surface, not just a human one.--format=json, a JSON-RPC daemon with a push stream, and gwm statusline for your prompt. The schemas are frozen under SemVer.
Undo.gwm undo and gwm history recover a worktree you removed by mistake, without git reflog.
Full documentation lives in docs/. This README is the landing page; every feature has a dedicated section in the doc tree.
On the AUR row:gwm-cli-bin is packaged and maintained by a community contributor, not by this project, so its version can lag behind a release. It has tracked recent releases closely, but the guarantee is not ours to give. Every other channel in the table is published from this repository's release pipeline. See #430; if it ever trails a release you need, cargo binstall gwm-cli or a prebuilt tarball gets you the current version on Arch in the meantime.
The crate is published as gwm-cli (the bare gwm name on crates.io belongs to an unrelated project): the installed command is still gwm. cargo binstall gwm-cli grabs the prebuilt binary from the matching GitHub Release instead of compiling git2/vendored-libgit2 from source, so no Rust toolchain needed at install time.
cd /path/to/your/repogwm init # write a default .gwm.tomlgwm init --preset laravel # …or seed a stack preset (laravel/symfony/node/rust/go/python-uv)gwm init --list-presets # list the built-in presetsgwm create feat 42 user-authentication # → ~/cc-worktree/<repo>/feat-42-user-authentication # → branch feat/#42-user-authenticationgwm # opens the TUI on the current repogcd auth # fuzzy-jump into the worktree (needs `gwm shell-init`)
Native worktree ops via vendored libgit2: git worktree add/list/remove/prune without shelling out.
CLI + ratatui TUI: gwm <subcommand> for scripts, bare gwm opens the interactive interface.
JSON API + daemon (#38): --format=json on gwm list / doctor / path (stable schemas under docs/schema/), and gwm daemon, a JSON-RPC 2.0 server over a unix socket (list / doctor / path + a subscribe push stream) so editors and statusbars connect once instead of shelling out per query.
First daemon consumer, gwm statusline (#309): a thin, dependency-free client that renders a compact one-line worktree summary (active branch · count · dirty/ahead/behind · issue/PR) for tmux / starship / zsh prompts off the daemon; --watch rides the subscribe stream, and with no daemon it degrades to a blank line. See Integrations → Daemon consumers.
Multi-repo workspace mode (#36): gwm --workspace ~/Projects opens the TUI across every git repo one level below a root (a REPO column tags each row; the active repo follows the selection); gwm list --workspace ~/Projects prints the merged table; gwm create --repo <name> picks the target. Bare gwm in a repo-free dir that holds child repos offers to open it as a workspace.
Per-repo .gwm.toml + user-level global config: branch / path conventions, file copies, regex guards, no-symlink invariants. A ~/.config/gwm/config.toml deep-merges underneath each repo's .gwm.toml. Edit it git-config-style with gwm config get / set / list / validate.
Config presets for gwm init (#37): gwm init --preset <name> seeds an opinionated .gwm.toml for a known stack (laravel / symfony / node / nuxt / rust / go / python-uv / generic) instead of the generic template; --list-presets enumerates them, --show prints the resolved TOML without writing.
Lifecycle hooks [hooks.*]: pre_create / post_create / pre_bootstrap / post_bootstrap / pre_remove / post_remove phases, each with when: predicates and per-step on_fail = abort|warn|ignore.
CLI aliases + Gitmoji convention: [aliases] expand gwm <alias> to argv before parsing; gwm commit-prefix, gwm types --gitmoji, and an opt-in gwm hooks install commit-msg hook enforce the repo's Gitmoji + Conventional Commits style.
GitHub workflow: branches matching <type>/#<N>-<slug> auto-link to their issue (with ephemeral PR auto-detection); gwm new opens an issue from a template then spins up the worktree, gwm pr renders the PR body; gwm review <PR#> (#308) pulls an existing PR (including one from a fork) into an isolated worktree (fetch + link), the inbound counterpart to gwm create (safe-by-default: bootstrap/hooks are opt-in via --bootstrap, since a fork PR's setup commands are arbitrary code); live status surfaces in the TUI sidebar via gh.
Safety daily: --dry-run on gwm remove / gwm prune to preview, gwm undo + gwm history to recover a misfired removal, a confirm-overlay countdown on armed branch-deletion, and deny-list regexes on copied files (the original "no AWS RDS in .env" incident, generalised).
Bulk cleanup (#484): Space marks rows in the TUI and d deletes the batch behind one confirm (D arms the branch deletion for all of them); gwm remove a b c is the non-interactive form, resolving every pattern before it touches anything so a typo removes nothing.
Per-worktree notes (#515): N opens the selected worktree's note in an editable modal (Ctrl+e hands it to $EDITOR) and the table marks the rows that carry one. Plain Markdown under <main-checkout>/.git/gwm/notes/, so it is greppable with gwm shut down, never committed, and it survives gwm remove; gwm note show [slug] reads it back and the --format=json rows carry it. gwm doctor reports a note whose branch is gone.
gwm sync: fetch a worktree's upstream and rebase (or --merge) its branch onto it, conflict-safe.
Fleet chores across worktrees (#313): gwm exec [<slug>...] -- <cmd> runs a command in each worktree sequentially (everything after -- forwarded verbatim) and prints a ✓ / ✗ rollup, exiting non-zero if any failed; gwm clean [<slug>...] reports reclaimable build artifacts (target/, node_modules/, dist/, build/) per worktree, deleting them only with --yes. A saved profile can carry a [container] block (#421) to run its command in docker run / podman run, mounting the worktree and the main checkout's gitdir at their host paths so git still answers inside the container.
Configurable launchers: drive the TUI's l (git TUI) and r / R (review) keybindings through [git_tui] and [review] sections in .gwm.toml.
TUI personalisation: role-based [theme] presets (catppuccin / gruvbox / tokyo-night / claude-dark), a remappable [tui.keys] keymap with multi-key chords (plus rebindable per-context modal keys under [tui.keys.modal.<context>], all editable live from the Settings panel's Keys tab), a : command palette, a sidebar stashes mode, and a persisted sidebar layout ([tui] sidebar_orientation, one of auto / side-by-side / stacked, #365), all responsive down to a narrow terminal.
Embedded PTY overlays (#35): l / L open lazygit and o / O open a native $SHELL session inside the TUI (no alternate-screen swap); Esc closes the overlay.
Works over SSH (#367): the yank actions (path / branch / worktree name / command logs) route through an OSC52 escape sequence when an SSH session is detected, so the text lands in your clipboard rather than the remote host's. [tui] clipboard = "auto" (the default) picks per session; osc52 / tools force either path. Wrapped in DCS passthrough under tmux (needs allow-passthrough on); falls back to the host tools inside GNU screen.
Richer Status sidebar: the Working Tree pane renders git status as a nerd-font file-explorer tree (#300) with git-coloured rows, and the Issue/PR section surfaces the linked PR's overall CI state ( CI passing 9/9 / CI failing 7/9 / CI running 8/9) derived from the already-fetched rollup (#299).
TOFU trust ledger on .gwm.toml (#95): first gwm create / gwm bootstrap against a repo prints the bootstrap surface (copies, guards, commands) and prompts before running anything. Recorded in ~/.config/gwm/trust.toml keyed on (origin URL, sha256 of .gwm.toml); any byte change re-prompts. CI bypass: --allow-bootstrap or GWM_ALLOW_BOOTSTRAP=1. Manage with gwm trust add / list / revoke / show. add approves the current repo without running anything, which is how you answer the same gate on a self-hosted forge host, where there is no prompt to answer because the check also runs on the TUI's selection path.
Published at https://gwm.kbrdn.dev, and it keeps itself there: a delivery landing on main that touches docs/ fires a resync and a redeploy on its own (#423).
The full tree lives under docs/: 39 pages in English, every one of them translated in French under docs/fr/. Numeric prefixes drive the sidebar order and every page carries frontmatter, so the tree renders as-is into the static site. The in-repo tree is the source of truth: the site is generated from it, never edited on the other side.
The docs/README.md page documents the authoring conventions (frontmatter contract, numeric-prefix routing, link semantics) for anyone editing the tree.
gwm started as a Rust rewrite of tools/worktree-manager.sh, a bash script tied to one team's Laravel stack and one repo's incident history. The Rust version keeps the lessons, makes them configurable per repo, and ships as a single binary so it works in every repo without per-project shell-script copies. Full background under Development → Contributing → history.
gwm is permissively licensed and built on personal time. If it saves you some of yours, you can support it through GitHub Sponsors.
Sponsoring buys nothing in particular: no priority support, no roadmap influence, no private builds. It pays for the time that goes into the release pipeline, the docs tree and the issue queue. Reporting a bug, sending a PR or packaging gwm for a channel it does not reach yet helps just as much.
at your option. You do not have to pick one up front and you never have to
say which: take whichever fits your situation. The Apache half is the one
that carries an express patent grant, which is usually what a legal review
is looking for.
Unless you state otherwise, any contribution you intentionally submit for
inclusion in this project, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, is dual-
licensed as above, with no additional terms or conditions.
