Git Worktree

git-worktree is a command that allows you to checkout and work on multiple branches on the same repository concurrently.

This works by creating linked worktrees of a repository; a separate directory that can be checked out to different branches in the repository.

Note that each linked worktree can only check out branches that are not yet checked out by other worktrees.

The most common use case for this command is a more convenient alternative to the common context switching flow that we do during development.

That is, when we have to stash then unstash unfinished work in order to do a different one, like so:

$stash \rightarrow checkout \rightarrow recheckout \rightarrow unstash$

With worktrees the process is more seamless as we no longer have to stash then unstash our current work since it's only a matter of switching worktree directories instead of changing branches on the same worktree.

Why not just use git-clone?

The advantage of git-worktree over git-clone is that the bare repository is shared between each worktree.

This means that the git config, metadata, commit history, branches, etc. are all shared to each worktree which removes the overhead of trying to synchronize them to each worktree.