Worktrees

A card that needs a checkout gets a git worktree of its own, on its own branch. The work happens there rather than in the checkout you are using, and it stays until you remove it.

When one is made

Never before it is needed. A card's checkout is created the first time something asks for one:

• a step runs on the card and that step needs a checkout. Session and command steps do by default; agent steps do not, because refining and reviewing read the card's text and a worktree would cost minutes and gigabytes for nothing;
• you press Open a terminal or Make a checkout in the card's Work section.

Until then the card says: "No checkout yet. One is made on its own branch the first time this card needs it." Once it exists, the Work section shows its branch, its path, how many files are uncommitted, and Reveal and Open in to get to it from outside devpit.

A new checkout is prepared once, before anything runs in it. If that fails, the message names the preparation rather than the work: "preparing the worktree failed: <command> exited <code>".

A checkout made again after its worktree was removed goes back on the card's branch, and its diff still starts from where the card's work began.

Setting up a new checkout

A fresh worktree has none of what git ignores — your .env, installed dependencies. New worktree setup, in the project's Edit project… (right-click it in the rail), says what a card's own checkout gets before anyone works in it, one entry per line:

It is kept on this machine and never committed.

Settings → Worktrees

For the open project:

• Worktree folder: "Where a card's checkout is created. A relative path puts them inside the project; an absolute one holds every project in the same place." Left empty it is the project's devpit workspace. Browse picks a folder, Reset goes back to the default, and a line underneath shows where the next one will land.
• Sources: git worktree lists every worktree a repository has, and someone working with agents has three kinds at once — devpit's card checkouts, the ones Claude Code makes for itself, and any made by hand. Show and Hide choose which kinds devpit counts. Hiding is a view, never a deletion, and the count stays on the row so you can see what the switch is taking away.
• The list: every card's checkout, with its branch, its size on disk and its uncommitted files and lines. An orphan pill marks a checkout with no card left to match it. The pane's total size on disk is at the top.

Removing one

A checkout goes only when you say so, with Remove. The dialog says what that means: "The folder goes; the branch stays, with everything committed on it."

If the checkout holds uncommitted work, devpit refuses to remove it until you have been told what would be lost: the dialog names how many files and how many lines have not been committed, and only then does confirming remove it.

Removing a project does not remove its worktrees. They stay on disk, and the removal dialog says how many there are. See Projects and Where your data lives.