Branches

In standard Git, all open terminals and editor windows share a single .git/HEAD. Running git checkout feat/pricing in one terminal switches the branch underneath every other open terminal and AI agent.

Tessera separates per-terminal branches, per-agent branches, and your editor branch so they never step on each other.

Editor, Terminal & Agent Branches in One Folder

Editor Branch

.git/HEAD → main

Editor on main

Terminal Tabs

✓ Independent Tabs

Agent Branches

tes claim --branch

✓ HEAD Untouched

Switch or Merge

Anytime

✓ Preview or Merge

Editor on main·Per-terminal tes switch·Per-agent branch claims·Switch editor or merge

Switching Branches

When shell integration is enabled (tes env --install), each terminal tab has its own session and can switch branches independently:

# Terminal 1
tes switch feat/pricing

# Terminal 2
tes switch feat/faq

If the target branch does not exist yet, Tessera creates it automatically from HEAD.

In a switched terminal tab:

• Your shell prompt displays (tes:feat/pricing) so you always see which branch that tab is on.
• Commands you run in that terminal (npm test, npm run build, npm run dev, cargo test) execute inside that branch's Copy-on-Write sandbox while your terminal prompt stays in your project folder.
• Other open terminals and your code editor remain untouched.

Switching the Editor Branch

When you want your IDE file explorer and language server to display a different branch's files in your main repository folder, switch the editor branch:

• In VS Code / Antigravity IDE: Click the branch name in the bottom-left status bar and select the branch from the dropdown.
• From the CLI: Pass --editor (or -e) to tes switch:

tes switch feat/pricing --editor

Switching the editor branch updates your repository working tree and .git/HEAD while keeping any open terminal tabs pinned to their own branches.

Assigning an Agent to a Branch

To have an AI agent build a feature on a specific branch without switching your editor away from main, name the branch in your prompt:

"On branch feat/faq, create src/components/TestimonialsFaq.vue and add it to src/App.vue."

The agent claims the branch automatically:

tes claim --branch feat/faq --intent "Add Testimonials and FAQ section" src/components/TestimonialsFaq.vue src/App.vue

When the agent finishes and commits onto feat/faq, your main working tree remains clean.

Listing Branches

View all branches in the repository and see which branch your current terminal session is using:

tes branch

Pass --json to inspect commit hashes, assigned ports, active sessions, and modified files ahead of main:

tes branch --json

Merging Branches

Combine one or more feature branches into main (or any target branch) using tes merge --into:

# Merge a single branch into main
tes merge feat/pricing --into main -m "feat: add pricing calculator"

# Merge multiple branches into main at once
tes merge feat/pricing feat/faq --into main -m "feat: add pricing and faq"

During tes merge, Tessera merges unchanged directories without reading file blobs, detects renamed files across directories, renumbers colliding sequential SQL migrations, merges package.json, Cargo.toml, and Cargo.lock dependencies structurally, and combines concurrent AST changes with Tree-sitter.

Pushing to Remotes

Commit any pending session changes and push a branch to your Git remote (origin):

tes push
tes push -u origin feat/pricing

See Also

• Sandboxes - Running builds and dev servers across branches
• Conflicts - Handling conflicts and rolling back merges
• Editor Support - Switching and merging branches in VS Code