wt

wt is a single-binary CLI + TUI for managing Git worktrees and their GitHub pull requests: create a branch and worktree in one step, jump between them, check out PRs into isolated directories, and clean up when work merges. Git is the source of truth — worktrees you create or remove with plain git show up automatically.

Getting Started

1. Install

Homebrew (recommended)

brew install getkono/tap/wt

This pulls a prebuilt binary from the getkono/homebrew-tap tap (macOS arm64/x86_64 and Linux arm64/x86_64).

Cargo (crates.io)

The crate is published as kono-wt (the bare wt name was already taken); the installed binary is still wt.

cargo install kono-wt                               # installs `wt` to ~/.cargo/bin

From source

You need the Rust toolchain (rustup), git ≥ 2.20 on your PATH, and — only for PR commands — the gh CLI.

cargo install --git https://github.com/getkono/wt   # latest from master
# or, from a checkout:
cargo install --path .                              # installs `wt` to ~/.cargo/bin

Make sure ~/.cargo/bin is on your PATH. Then enable shell integration (below) — that single step also gives you the best tab completion.

2. Enable shell integration (required for navigation)

A program can't change its parent shell's working directory, so on its own wt can only print where to go. The shell wrapper closes that gap: it captures the path and cds you in. Source it from your shell rc once:

# ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc
eval "$(wt shell-init zsh)"      # use `bash` for bash

# fish (~/.config/fish/config.fish)
wt shell-init fish | source

# PowerShell ($PROFILE)
wt shell-init powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

Without it, switch, new, pr, and the TUI just print a path instead of moving you. Supported shells: bash, zsh, fish, powershell, elvish. On anything else, wt switch --print-path lets you build your own cd alias.

This is also the recommended way to get tab completion. The shell-init snippet installs dynamic completions that suggest live values — real worktree names, branches, and PR numbers (via wt __complete) — not just the static command and flag list. Because you need to source it for navigation anyway, it's the single step that sets up everything; there's no separate completions install. (A static, values-unaware script is still available via wt completions <shell> if you want to manage it yourself.)

3. Authenticate gh (only for PR commands)

gh auth login

Everything except wt pr works fully offline. If gh is missing or unauthenticated, only the PR commands fail (with an actionable message); the rest keep working.

4. Open it

Run wt with no arguments in any repository to launch the TUI dashboard, then press ? for the full keymap — creating, switching, removing, checking out PRs, sorting, and filtering are all discoverable from there. For example:

wt new feature/login   # create the branch + worktree and switch into it
wt switch              # fuzzy-pick a worktree to jump to

Run wt --help (or wt <command> --help) for the complete command surface.

Key features to know

These are the things worth knowing up front; the rest is discoverable from --help and the TUI.

• See every branch, not just worktrees. The TUI lists your worktrees first, then — dimmed beneath them — any local branch that has no worktree, each with how far it is ahead/behind its base. Select one and press Enter to create a worktree for it and switch in (it asks first). A branch left behind after you remove its worktree stays visible here instead of vanishing.

• Pick options on pop-up fields. TUI fields with known choices offer an inline dropdown instead of blind typing. The new-worktree branch/base fields suggest existing local and remote branches to fork from or check out — type to filter, ↑/↓ to pick, Enter to accept, or just type a brand-new name. The PR compose form's model and effort fields list their choices the same way.

• Where worktrees are created. New worktrees follow a configurable path template. The default keeps them beside the repo, out of it, and prefixes each worktree directory with the repo name so it's obvious which repo you're in: {repo_parent}/{repo}.worktrees/{repo}-{branch_slug}. Change it with wt config set path_template …. Common alternatives: a subdir inside the repo, {repo_root}/.worktrees/{branch_slug} (add it to .gitignore), or a central store, {home}/worktrees/{repo}/{branch_slug}. Worktrees you made by hand anywhere are still listed and managed.

• Auto-copy ignored files into new worktrees. Git-ignored files like .env don't follow a new worktree. List glob patterns under copy to bring them along on wt new, e.g. copy = [".env", ".env.local"].

• Run a command after creating a worktree. hooks.post_create (e.g. npm install, direnv allow) runs inside the new worktree; hooks.pre_remove runs before removal. Hooks receive WT_WORKTREE_PATH, WT_BRANCH, WT_REPO_ROOT, and friends in their environment.

• Configuration lives in two places. A per-repo .wt.toml at the repo root and a global user config, managed with wt config get|set|list|edit (--global for the user config); precedence is flags > repo > global. wt init is an optional convenience that scaffolds a starter .wt.toml and, for a subdir store, offers to add it to .gitignore.

• Theme the TUI. Pick a built-in palette and tweak individual colors under [ui.theme]: preset selects the base (one-dark (default) or solarized), and the named slots (accent, green, red, yellow, orange, cyan, magenta, gray, selection_bg, chip_fg) override it. Colors are #rrggbb hex, a named color (e.g. cyan, light-blue), or a 0–255 ANSI index. Like every setting, themes merge across layers (a global base palette, per-repo accents), e.g.

  [ui.theme]
  preset = "solarized"
  accent = "#ff8800"
  

• Removal protects your work. wt remove and wt prune refuse to drop a worktree with uncommitted or unpushed changes unless you pass --force.

• Drop the worktree you're in. wt drop removes the worktree containing the current directory (from any depth), keeps the branch, and cds you back to the main worktree. It refuses the primary worktree and honors the same --force guard.

• Bulk-clean stale branches. wt prune --merged removes worktrees whose branch is merged into the default branch, and wt prune --gone removes worktrees whose upstream was deleted (plus any missing worktrees). Both also delete matching local branches that no longer have a worktree — so a repo left with a pile of merged feature branches gets cleaned up too. Preview with --dry-run. A --gone branch that isn't also merged may hold unmerged commits, so it is skipped unless you pass --force. The current and default branches are never touched.

Development

Prerequisites

• Rust (rustup) — toolchain (pinned via rust-toolchain.toml)
• mise — tool manager + task runner
• hk — git hooks manager

Run mise install once to fetch the pinned dev tools (hk, pkl, cargo-llvm-cov, cargo-mutants).

After cloning, run mise install to fetch the dev tools, then hk install once to activate the git hooks.

Tech Stack

• Runtime: Rust (edition 2024)
• Formatter: rustfmt
• Linter: Clippy
• Task runner: mise
• Git hooks: hk
• Key Dependencies: tokio, eyre + color-eyre, tracing + tracing-subscriber, thiserror

Architecture

The logic lives in the library crate (src/lib.rs) so it is unit-testable and measured by coverage. The binary (src/main.rs) is a thin entry point that wires up error reporting and tracing, then delegates to the library; it is excluded from coverage.

Git Hooks

This project uses hk, configured in hk.pkl. Pre-commit hooks auto-fix formatting and linting on staged Rust files. Pre-push hooks run format checks, Clippy, tests, and the coverage gate.

CI/CD

GitHub Actions runs format checks, linting, tests, and coverage on pushes to main and pull requests.

Code Coverage

This project uses cargo-llvm-cov for LLVM-based code coverage. CI enforces a minimum of 80% line coverage and uploads the report as a CI artifact.

mise run coverage

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.