orchardist 🌲🌳🌴

A command center for git worktrees, PRs, tmux sessions, and Claude Code sessions — across repos and machines.

Orchardist is an ecosystem of cooperating binaries and agent-layer tools. One orchard command dispatches to them; the languages (Rust, Go, Tauri) matter less than what the components do together.

📰 Blog: Grow the Orchard

What is orchardist

Orchardist gives you a single dashboard showing everything happening across your repos: which worktrees have PRs, what state they're in, which Claude sessions are working/idle/waiting for input, and what needs your attention.

The ecosystem spans a terminal dashboard, a desktop GUI, a local GraphQL daemon, worktree and chat CLIs, a tmux popup integration, and Claude Code agent skills — all wired together through one dispatcher.

The ecosystem

One binary — orchard — is the user-facing entry point. It dispatches verbs to the right helper, so you never need to remember which binary owns which command.

Binaries

Binary	Role	Stack	Location	Build
orchard	Dispatcher — the only binary users invoke directly; routes verbs to helpers (orchard tui → orchard-tui, etc.)	Rust	crates/orchard-dispatcher	make dispatcher
orchard-tui	Terminal dashboard — worktrees, PRs, sessions, CI in one view; --json/--schema wire format	Rust + Ratatui 0.30	crates/orchard	make rust → target/release/orchard-tui
orchard-daemon	Read/join GraphQL daemon on localhost:7777; schema-first (schema.graphql at repo root, make generate to regenerate Go types); read-only join layer over git, tmux, gh, claude, processes, and federation peers	Go (github.com/drewdrewthis/orchardist)	cmd/orchard-daemon	make daemon → bin/orchard-daemon
orchard-gui	Desktop app for deep Claude session view	Tauri 2 + SvelteKit / Houdini / Tailwind / xterm	crates/orchard-gui	make gui
orchard-worktree	Worktree mutation CLI; dispatched as orchard new/rm/mv/prune/ls/path	Rust	crates/orchard-worktree	make worktree-cli
orchard-chat	Cross-machine agent-to-agent chat (JSONL rooms, tmux fanout); dispatched as orchard send/chat	Rust	crates/orchard-chat + crates/chat-core	—

The binaries are named distinctly from the repo slug on purpose so they can coexist on the same $PATH.

Non-binary surfaces

tmux popup — orchard-tui init installs an orchard() shell function, a Ctrl-o tmux popup keybinding, and an optional status bar. The TUI then lives one keystroke away from any terminal.

Claude skills / agent layer — the /install-orchard skill (.claude/skills/install-orchard/) automates orchardist setup from inside a Claude Code session. The bundled orchardist plugin in .claude-plugin/marketplace.json provides /orchardist:recall — session-search and synthesis over past Claude Code conversations.

Federation / remote — manage worktrees on remote SSH hosts; transfer (push/pull) worktrees between machines; reachability indicators in the dashboard.

History

Renamed from git-orchard to orchardist on 2026-06-09; the old URL redirects.

Features

• Unified dashboard — worktrees, PRs, issues, tmux sessions, and Claude state in one view
• Multi-repo — switch between projects with left/right arrows
• Claude Code integration — see which sessions are working, idle, or waiting for input via hooks
• Smart grouping — shepherd (main sessions), needs attention, claude working, ready to merge, other
• Priority toggle — flag worktrees as priority to keep them at the top
• PR status — review decisions, CI checks, merge conflicts, unresolved threads
• Issue state — closed issues flagged for cleanup
• Cleanup — select and delete worktrees with merged PRs or closed issues
• Click-to-switch notifications — desktop notifications when Claude finishes; click to jump to the session
• Remote worktrees — manage worktrees on remote machines via SSH, with reachability indicators
• JSON output — orchard-tui --json returns complete, fresh data for scripting
• Auto-refresh — background refresh with two-phase loading (fast locals, then slow remotes)
• Mouse support — click to select worktrees, scroll to navigate
• Transfer — push/pull worktrees between local and remote machines
• Self-healing — orchard-tui heal audits and repairs drifted state
• Theme system — centralized semantic color definitions for consistent styling

Install

From source

cargo install --git https://github.com/drewdrewthis/orchardist orchard --bin orchard-tui

# Or from a local checkout:
cargo install --path crates/orchard --bin orchard-tui

The binaries are named distinctly from the repo slug (orchardist) on purpose so they can coexist on the same $PATH.

Setup

orchard-tui init

This will:

1. Add the orchard shell function to your rc file (launches inside tmux)
2. Set up a tmux keybinding (default: Ctrl-o)
3. Optionally add orchard status to your tmux status bar
4. Install Claude Code hooks for session state detection

Usage

orchard-tui                    Interactive dashboard
orchard-tui cleanup            Jump straight to cleanup view
orchard-tui heal               Audit state for drift (dry-run by default)
orchard-tui heal --fix         Apply repairs
orchard-tui setup-remote HOST  Provision a remote host for SSH worktrees
orchard-tui init               Setup wizard
orchard-tui --json             Full state as JSON (always fresh, never cached)
orchard-tui --schema           Print the JSON Schema for --json output and exit

Agent-oriented output

--json is the single wire format. Agents that want a token-efficient encoding should pipe through @toon-format/cli:

npm i -g @toon-format/cli
orchard-tui --json | jq '.repos' | toon

--schema emits the JSON Schema for --json output — field names (post-camelCase), enum string values, and nullability. Agents should read it before writing jq filters so they target the real wire format instead of guessing from Rust types:

orchard-tui --schema | jq '.properties | keys'
# ["hosts", "repos", "tmuxSessions", "version"]

The schema is generated at build time from the same types the binary serializes, and CI fails if the committed crates/orchard/schema.json drifts from the live types.

Keybindings

Key	Action
↑/↓ or j/k	Navigate worktrees
←/→	Switch between repos
Enter	Switch to tmux session (creates one if needed)
1-9	Jump to worktree by number
o	Open PR in browser
i	Open issue in browser
p	Toggle priority flag
d	Delete worktree
n	New worktree
t	Transfer worktree (push/pull to remote)
c	Cleanup stale worktrees
f	Cycle filter mode
/	Search
r	Refresh
R	Reconnect (SSH)
?	Help
Mouse click	Select worktree
Mouse scroll	Navigate list
q	Quit

Configuration

Global config

~/.orchard/config.json — register multiple repos:

{
  "repos": [
    {
      "slug": "owner/repo",
      "path": "/path/to/repo",
      "remotes": [
        {
          "name": "gpu",
          "host": "user@server",
          "path": "/remote/path",
          "shell": "ssh"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "tmux_sessions": [
    {
      "name": "shepherd",
      "command": "claude --continue",
      "cwd": "/path/to/repo",
      "start_on_launch": true
    }
  ]
}

If no global config exists, orchard auto-detects the current repo via gh repo view.

Per-repo config

.orchard.json in the repo root (committable, team-shared):

{
  "ci": {
    "ignore": ["codecov/patch", "deploy-preview"],
    "required": ["test", "build"]
  }
}

.git/orchard.json for local-only overrides (remotes, personal preferences).

See ADR-003 for the full design.

The Orchardist (optional)

Optional power-user workflow. Orchard is a fully functional worktree, PR, and session dashboard on its own. The orchardist is an advanced layer on top — skip this section unless you want it.

The orchardist is a persistent Claude Code session attached to a repo that acts like an always-on engineering lead: it reviews PRs, launches worktrees for issues, drives sessions to green, and keeps the orchard tidy. It lives in a dedicated tmux session that orchard starts and reconnects to automatically, so it's always one keystroke away from the dashboard.

Easy setup

The recommended path is automated — no JSON editing required:

• From a Claude Code session inside the repo, run /install-orchard and follow the prompts, or
• Re-run orchard-tui init, which can offer to configure an orchardist for you.

Either option writes the right tmux_sessions entry into your config and starts the session.

Using it

Once configured, the orchardist shows up as a row in the orchard dashboard:

• Press Enter on the orchardist row to jump straight into its tmux session.
• Delegate work with slash commands:
  • /launch <issue> — create a worktree and Claude session for a GitHub issue
  • /drive-pr <pr> — loop a PR to green (fix CI, address review comments)
  • /orchard-view — dashboard view of active worktrees
  • /prune — clean up stale worktrees and dead sessions
  • /recover — self-heal after a reboot or crash

Manual config (reference)

If you'd rather configure it by hand, add a tmux_sessions entry to ~/.orchard/config.json:

"tmux_sessions": [
  {
    "name": "shepherd",
    "command": "claude --continue",
    "cwd": "/path/to/repo",
    "start_on_launch": true
  }
]

• name — tmux session name shown in the dashboard.
• command — command to run in the session (claude --continue resumes the last conversation).
• cwd — working directory for the session (usually the repo root).
• start_on_launch — if true, orchard starts the session automatically when it launches.

This is the same snippet the automated setup writes for you; edit it only if you want to customize what the skill produces.

Claude Code Integration

Orchard detects Claude session state via hooks (not terminal scraping):

orchard-tui init  # installs hooks automatically

The hooks write structured JSON on every Claude event (tool use, stop, notification). Orchard reads these for accurate working/idle/input detection, plus context window usage and cost tracking.

Architecture & deeper docs

See docs/architecture.md for the full architecture guide and the Functional Core, Imperative Shell breakdown (source modules → build_state() → TUI / --json).

Contributor references:

• docs/adr/ — 23 Architecture Decision Records, including ADR-003 (per-repo config) and ADR-013 (CLI ecosystem design)
• RULES.md — the repo constitution
• specs/features/ — BDD feature specs

Requirements

• Git
• tmux
• GitHub CLI (gh) — for PR/issue data
• terminal-notifier — for click-to-switch notifications (optional, falls back to osascript)

License

MIT