Managing Git Worktrees Without the Hassle

If you've ever been deep in a feature branch when a critical bug report comes in, you know the pain. Stash your changes, switch branches, fix the bug, switch back, pop the stash, hope nothing broke. Or worse, you're waiting on a slow build or test suite while your brain is ready to move on to something else.

Git worktrees solve this. They let you have multiple branches checked out simultaneously in separate directories, all sharing the same .git history. But the commands are verbose and you still need to manually set up your environment in each new worktree: install dependencies, copy over your .env files, etc.

That's why I built fracture, a git worktree CLI tool that handles all the setup for you.

The Use Cases

Parallel debugging. Run two branches side by side to compare behavior without constantly switching back and forth.

Quick hotfixes. A production bug comes in while you're mid-feature. Spin up a worktree, fix it, ship it, and get back to what you were doing. Your work stays exactly where you left it.

Code review. Check out a colleague's PR branch to test it locally while keeping your own work intact.

Long-running tasks. Let a build, test suite, or CI run in one worktree while you continue working in another.

AI pair programming. Let an AI agent work on one branch while you continue on another. No more blocked branches while waiting for the agent to finish.

How Fracture Helps

Fracture wraps git worktrees with a simpler interface. Run fracture, pick a branch, and you're dropped into a fully set up environment. Your .env files are copied over, dependencies are installed (Node.js, Rust, Go), and you're ready to work.

No configuration. No setup. Just fracture and go.

When you're done, exit the shell and you're back where you started.

Give fracture a try.

Honorable mention: After building fracture, I discovered wtp, another worktree management tool. If you need more control through configuration files and hooks, it's worth checking out.