A keyboard-driven Rex plugin for opening and creating Git worktrees and Jujutsu (JJ) workspaces. Pick a project, machine, checkout, and session; it opens a shell there. No agent or model required.
Requires Rex and its CLI, a running Rex server, and Git 2.42+. JJ projects also need Jujutsu 0.46+. Standalone builds support Apple Silicon macOS 15+ and Linux x64; no Bun runtime is needed.
Install or update on macOS (Apple Silicon):
npm install -g rex-worktrees
rex-worktrees setup
rex config reloadnpm installs the CLI; setup registers the Lua plugin with Rex and copies its executable to ~/.local/bin/rex-worktrees for the plugin to use. No executable path is needed. Run setup from a shell that can find rex, git, and optionally jj; unrelated Rex settings are preserved. Repeat all three commands to update.
Without npm / Linux: download your platform's archive from GitHub Releases, verify it against SHA256SUMS, and extract it. From the extracted directory:
./rex-worktrees setup && rex config reloadSetup copies the executable to the same stable location, so the extracted directory is not needed afterward. setup --bin /absolute/path/to/rex-worktrees is only for keeping an executable at a custom or package-managed location.
Open Open Worktree… from the Rex palette, or run:
rex do worktrees_open- Project: select a discovered project or type an absolute repository path.
- Machine: choose this machine or an existing Rex host.
- Checkout / Workspace: select an existing checkout, or type a new Git branch or JJ workspace name. New JJ workspaces also need a Start from revision; a valid
trunk()is selected automatically. - Session: select an existing session, or type a name to create one.
- Choose Open / Create / Clone or press Ctrl+S from the form.
Mode reuses a matching tab by default; choose a new tab or split instead. New Git checkouts can have a custom Directory name, separate from the branch.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Tab / Shift+Tab | Move between fields and buttons |
| ↑ / ↓ | Navigate fields or choices |
| Enter | Edit a field, accept its value, or activate a focused button |
| Ctrl+S | Submit the form; inside an editor, only accept that field |
| Esc | Leave the editor, or close the form |
| PageUp / PageDown | Scroll long details |
Optional shortcut—add outside the managed section of your Rex config, then reload:
rex.bind("ctrl+alt+w", "worktrees_open")Without configuration, the current pane's repository is suggested. To list more projects, edit the existing registration in your Rex init.lua, then run rex config reload:
require("rex-worktrees").setup({
projects = { "/absolute/path/to/project" },
roots = { "/absolute/path/to/projects" },
})Both settings are optional. projects lists repositories explicitly; roots discovers them up to two directory levels deep. New checkouts default to a sibling <repository>.worktrees/<name> directory. Set worktreeRoot globally or on a project object ({ path = "…", worktreeRoot = "…" }) to override it. Setup preserves these settings on upgrades and migrates the former JSON configuration.
Install and run setup on each execution machine, with matching plugin versions and local Git/JJ tools. Connect the host through Rex first. Paths and configuration belong to the selected machine.
The chooser can clone a known project to another directory or host. Only pushed history transfers—not uncommitted work, unpublished changes, or credentials. Cross-host execution and cloning are experimental; live remote Linux destinations have not been verified.
- Existing checkouts open unchanged. The plugin does not switch, reset, stash, clean, or delete your work.
- Creating a JJ workspace runs
jj workspace add, which may snapshot its source workspace. - Closing the chooser or a tab does not delete a checkout or stop an already-submitted task.
- If a launch times out or says needs inspection, inspect the destination and session before retrying; a task may already exist.
Run rex-worktrees --help for direct open commands and host/session options. rex-worktrees popup runs the chooser in the current terminal.
Build from source with Bun 1.3.13:
bun install --frozen-lockfile
bun run check
bun run test
bun run build
./dist/rex-worktrees setup
rex config reloadSource-build setup installs to ~/.local/bin/rex-worktrees. To uninstall, remove the BEGIN rex-worktrees / END rex-worktrees section and adjacent rex-worktrees.lua from your active Rex config (rex config check --json), remove the executable, and reload. Repositories are retained.
Releases publish the tested macOS archive to npm through GitHub Actions OIDC, then verify registry version and tarball integrity. The npm trusted publisher must authorize samuelho-dev/rex-worktrees, workflow release.yml, for direct publishing; no npm token is used. Tag a matching package version (vX.Y.Z) to release.
Registry verification allows up to 120 checks, ten seconds apart, for npm processing. Publishing is not retried; an integrity mismatch still fails the release.
MIT. Standalone builds embed Bun; see third-party notices.
Runtime sources and rebuilding
Release archives include the relinkable rex-worktrees.js bundle. Matching Bun 1.3.13, WebKit, and tinycc sources and checksums are in the runtime-source release. Extract all three source archives, placing WebKit at bun-source/vendor/WebKit and tinycc at bun-source/vendor/tinycc (strip each archive's top-level directory).
Follow Bun's build prerequisites, then run in bun-source:
bun install --frozen-lockfile
GIT_SHA=bf2e2cecf27e800962b1e7f03d66278f9d5d2e79 bun run build:release:local
./build/release-local/bun build /absolute/path/to/rex-worktrees.js --compile --outfile /absolute/path/to/rex-worktrees-relinked
codesign --force --sign - /absolute/path/to/rex-worktrees-relinked # macOS only