Orbit

Source code as agent knowledge — multi-repo Git workspaces where agents read, code, and ship

→ No RAG. No index — real source, not retrieval.

▶ Watch the full run

Orbit manages multi-repo Git workspaces where AI coding agents read, modify, and commit directly in real source code — full worktrees with git history, not index fragments. Integrates with Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and Qoder.

I built Orbit because I was tired of copy-pasting context between repo sessions — one agent should have your entire repo pool available, loading what it needs on demand instead of being locked to one repo per session.

Who it's for: developers whose agent work spans multiple repos — main project, dependency source, toolchain and wiki alongside it. Solo or team, polyrepo or cross-repo debugging.

Why Orbit

Cross-repo context consistency. One agent, one workspace, multi-repo delivery — every repo the agent pulls in shares the same context. The agent greps, reads, and modifies across repos without switching tools: when it changes backend, it sees the result immediately in frontend. Full git history (blame, log, branch topology) across every repo, no copy-pasting, no stale snapshots.

Approach	Accuracy	History	Write-back	Cross-repo
Agent memory	Low — stale	✗ None	—	✗ Per-session
Web search	Medium — fragments	✗ None	—	✗ None
Add directory	High — per-dir	✓ Per-repo	✓ Yes	✗ No unified tree
RAG	Medium — loses structure	✗ Lost in chunks	✗ Read-only	✗ Per-query
Orbit	High — grep, trace	✓ Full git	✓ Commit, push	✓ Unified tree

Parallel isolation. Each workspace is an independent multi-repo worktree combination. Multiple agents work in parallel, each in its own workspace — no branch conflicts, no state leaking between tasks. Reusing a single workspace across tasks means branch contamination and agent interference; isolation is what makes multi-task, multi-agent practical.

Real directory tree, zero toolchain adaptation. A workspace is a real directory tree — not symlinks, not editor virtual views. Drop a go.work and go build/gopls resolve across repos with zero setup. Same for Cargo/pnpm/Gradle. Your toolchain doesn't know Orbit exists, and that's the point.

Goal to workspace in one command. orbit new "goal" creates a task-scoped workspace. Once the agent starts, it uses orbit commands to assemble repos progressively:

Level 0  orbit repos        → Name + one-line brief (~50 tokens/repo)
Level 1  orbit info <repo>  → Roles + entry points (~200 tokens)
Level 2  orbit add <repo>   → Full source directory

After working, the agent captures discoveries with orbit jot and folds them into repo memos — the same content later sessions read at Level 1, closing the feedback loop.

Knowledge repo as a workspace member. A dedicated knowledge repo — design notes, PRDs, decisions — sits alongside code repos as a first-class member. The agent reads from it and writes back via branch + PR, so knowledge accumulates in one place instead of getting lost in chat or session memory. Solo devs sweep whenever; teams aggregate daily. Same mechanism, no server. See docs/recipes.md for the pattern.

Try it now (a few minutes, no setup)

Spins up a two-repo mission — a probe's flight computer and its ground station, wired by a shared contract — entirely on your machine: the two mission repos are local fakes, so no GitHub account, no push, no server.

Claude Code

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orbcli/orbit/main/try.sh)" _ --claude

Codex

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orbcli/orbit/main/try.sh)" _ --codex

Other agents

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orbcli/orbit/main/try.sh)" _ --opencode  # OpenCode
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orbcli/orbit/main/try.sh)" _ --qodercli  # Qoder CLI
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orbcli/orbit/main/try.sh)"               # runtime only

(The _ is a bash placeholder for the script name — copy a line as-is. Runtime-only skips the plugin; you maintain the skill yourself.)

The demo drops you into a ready workspace: add a fuel field to the telemetry downlink — a change that must land in both repos in lockstep. With an agent flag, the plugin install is folded in — just claude start, codex start, opencode --prompt start, or qodercli start. Works on a fresh machine with no SSH keys — the demo rides a shorthand → HTTPS → SSH source chain and retries through flaky networks. Clean up with rm -rf ~/orbit-try.

Quick Start

1. Install

One-line, with your agents' plugins

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orbcli/orbit/main/install.sh)" _ --claude --zsh

Flags combine freely — agent plugins: --claude / --codex / --opencode / --qoder (--qodercli); shell completion: --zsh / --bash (or neither).

Runtime only

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/orbcli/orbit/main/install.sh)"

From a local clone

git clone https://github.com/orbcli/orbit.git && cd orbit
./install.sh --claude          # Claude Code plugin
./install.sh --codex           # Codex plugin
./install.sh --opencode        # OpenCode plugin
./install.sh --qoder           # Qoder plugin (--qodercli is an alias)
./install.sh --claude --zsh    # add shell completion: --zsh or --bash

install.sh installs the runtime to ~/.local/bin and puts it on your PATH. To uninstall: ./install.sh --uninstall --all (or pick targets — ./install.sh --help).

• Reinstall or switch the plugin source — every install refreshes content; --force resets plugin and marketplace (also how you switch sources).
• Config-management tools — provider switchers and other snapshot-restore tools can roll back Orbit's plugin registration; what to put into the tool's stored config per host.
• Flaky or blocked network — retries, source-chain rotation, no silent failures, no hangs.
• Codex notes — plugin hooks need a one-time trust review (/hooks in the CLI); Orbit writes to .repos/ outside the workspace root, which Codex's sandbox may block.
• OpenCode via npm (alternative) — add "opencode-orbit" to the plugin array in opencode.json; the plugin self-registers its skill, no manual setup needed.

2. Configure agent launch command (one-time)

orbit config agent.recommend 'claude "orbit start"'

3. Create a workspace and start working

# Add repos to the source pool (one-time)
orbit clone git@github.com:org/backend.git
orbit clone git@github.com:org/frontend.git

# Create workspace, launch agent
orbit new "Modify API definition and update frontend calls"
cd task-01 && claude "orbit start"

# Or skip manual launch:
orbit new "Upgrade informer to v0.28 new API" --exec 'claude "orbit start"'

For the complete command flow, see USAGE.md; for common scenarios, see docs/recipes.md.

Core Concepts

project-root/
  .repos/                ← Cloned repos, shared across all workspaces
    .orbit               ← Global index + repo briefs + project config
    .backend.md          ← Repo memo (agent read/write)
    backend/
    frontend/
  task-01/               ← Workspace: isolated environment for one task
    .orbit               ← Goal, creation time, status
    backend/             ← Worktree (actual development directory)
    frontend/

What Orbit is Not

• Not an orchestrator — gives each agent an isolated workspace; parallelism comes from isolation, not scheduling.
• Not a cloud service — Zero infra, no server, no database, no container, no daemon. Everything lives as real source and plain markdown in your .repos/.
• Not a workflow manager — orbit doesn't prescribe git workflow (commit, branch, push are native git) or manage workspace files (go.work, Cargo.toml, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md workspaces). They work because the directory layout is real; placing them is your or your agent's call.

See PRINCIPLES.md for the full non-goals.

Context detection

Orbit works best when the agent knows it's inside a workspace from its first turn:

Integration	Auto-detect	Workaround
Claude Code plugin	Yes — bundled SessionStart hook injects workspace state	—
Codex plugin	Yes — bundled SessionStart hook injects workspace state	—
OpenCode plugin	Yes — bundled system.transform hook injects workspace state	—
Qoder plugin	Yes — bundled SessionStart hook injects workspace state	—
Skill only / other agents	No	/orbit or orbit start at session start

Launch sequence

A cold start loads progressively:

1. Prime (orbit context --startup) — goal, state, repo pool roster. No source loaded yet.
2. Ignite (orbit info → orbit add <repo>) — agent assesses repos via memo, pulls what it needs as full worktrees.
3. Orbit — grep, edit, commit, push. New repos pulled on demand.

Resuming a workspace with repos already present skips priming — the same --startup call re-ignites it with each repo's memo + staleness instead.

Auto-approving safe commands

Plugin users: nothing to configure — all four plugins (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Qoder) auto-approve safe orbit subcommands. The hook needs jq on PATH; without it the hook stays inert and you keep the native prompts. The dependency goes away in a future release. Skill-only users can allowlist by hand. See skills/CONSTRAINTS.md for command tiers and the allowlist snippet.

Command Reference

# Repo management
orbit clone <url> [--push <fork-url>] [--name <identity>] [--branch <branch>]
orbit repos
orbit info <repo>
orbit memo [<repo>] [--refresh|--scaffold]
orbit sync [repo...] [--force] [--branch <branch>]   # --force / --branch: project root only

# Workspace lifecycle
orbit new "<goal>" [--name <name>] [--no-goal] [--exec "<cmd>"]
orbit add <repo> [--ref <tag/branch>] [-s|--silent]
orbit switch [repo] <name>
orbit switch -c [repo] <name>
orbit jot [<repo>] ["<text>"]
orbit jot [<repo>] --pop [--json]
orbit done [--pr <url>...] [--json]

# Cross-workspace cleanup (from project root only)
orbit prune [workspace] [--older <dur>] [--dry-run] [--force]

# Status and context
orbit status [workspace]
orbit goal ["text" / --clear]
orbit context [<key>] [--startup|--prime|--reignite] [--json]

# Configuration
orbit config [<key> [<value> | --unset]]

# Diagnostics
orbit doctor
orbit version

# Completion
orbit completion <zsh|bash>

Documentation

Document	Content
USAGE.md	Complete usage guide
docs/recipes.md	Common scenarios cookbook
docs/comparison.md	Tool comparison (workspace management + context/knowledge tools)
PRINCIPLES.md	Design principles and key decisions
ROADMAP.md	Roadmap and completion status
docs/spec-*.md	Design specs (directory structure, branching strategy, command system, metadata, knowledge system, lifecycle, hooks)
CONTRIBUTING.md	Contribution workflow and development conventions