treeswitch

A macOS menu bar tool (SwiftBar plugin) for switching your local dev environment between git worktrees. One icon, with a submenu per repo you configure (for example a Frontend on :4200 and a Backend on :8000), each listing that repo's worktrees with a ✓ on the one that's currently running. Click a worktree to kill that server and relaunch it from the selected worktree, headless, with output going to a log.

⎇ 2                          ← icon + count of running servers
├─ ↩ Reset to main           ← one click: every repo's checkout back to its default branch
├─ ─────────
├─ Frontend (:4200) ● running
│   ├─ ✓ fix/security #838 ● ↑2  —  frontend-repo   (✓ active · #PR · ● dirty · ↑ahead/↓behind)
│   ├─    main  —  frontend-repo
│   ├─ ─────────
│   ├─ Open http://localhost:4200
│   ├─ ↻ Restart current
│   ├─ Stop server
│   ├─ Stream log
│   ├─ ─────────
│   ├─ ✎ Edit repo…           ← same dialogs, pre-filled
│   └─ ✕ Remove repo…         ← drops it from the menu only
├─ Backend (:8000) ○ stopped
│   ├─    main  —  backend-repo
│   ├─    codex/integration-tests  —  backend-repo
│   ├─ ─────────
│   ├─ Open http://localhost:8000/docs
│   └─ Stream log
├─ ─────────
├─ Stop all
├─ ➕ Add repo…             ← native folder picker + a couple of prompts
├─ Refresh
└─ Edit config

Requirements

• macOS — uses SwiftBar, osascript, lsof, and stat -f.
• SwiftBar — brew install --cask swiftbar.
• zsh and git — both ship with macOS.
• GitHub CLI (gh) — optional, only for the PR-number annotations (gh auth login). Works with github.com and GitHub Enterprise; the host is read from each repo's remote.

How it works

• Repos are independent — switching one doesn't touch the others.
• Worktrees come from git worktree list on each repo (live, every 10s), annotated with a dirty marker (●) and ahead/behind counts vs upstream.
• Switching kills the running server, then launches the configured command from the selected worktree:
  • Process-group lifecycle — each server is launched in its own session via setsid, and its process-group id is recorded. Stopping does kill -- -<pgid>, so the whole tree dies (the uv run/reload parent, the uvicorn workers, npm → ng serve children) — not just the port holder. A server started outside the tool is still stopped cleanly by deriving its group from whoever holds the port.
  • Detached + login shell (nohup … &!, zsh -l) so it survives the click action exiting and inherits your PATH (brew / uv / node).
  • npm install runs first only if node_modules is missing (frontend).
  • Log rotation — the previous log is moved to <repo>.log.prev; each launch gets a fresh <repo>.log.
  • Failure notification — if the port never comes up within ~25s, a macOS notification fires and the menu shows ⚠ last start may have failed.
• Active ✓ = the worktree recorded in state/<repo>.active and the port is actually in use.
• ↩ Reset to main — one click switches every repo's primary checkout (the project's main folder) to its default branch (resolved from origin/HEAD, falling back to main/master) and (re)starts it. main lives in the project folder, not a separate worktree. A repo is skipped with a notification if the default branch can't be resolved, or if the checkout can't switch to it — e.g. uncommitted changes that would conflict, or the default branch is already checked out in another worktree.
• PR numbers — when a worktree's branch has an open GitHub PR, its number (e.g. #838, or #838 draft) is shown next to the branch. Powered by gh pr list per repo, cached under cache/<repo>.prs and refreshed in the background every ~2 minutes so the menu never blocks on the network. Works on GitHub Enterprise too (host is taken from each repo's remote). Toggle with SHOW_PRS=0.

Layout

<this repo>/
├─ treeswitch.10s.sh   # the plugin + click-action dispatcher (single file)
├─ config.zsh      # template config
├─ install.sh      # seeds ~/.treeswitch and links the plugin
├─ uninstall.sh    # removes the plugin link (--purge also wipes ~/.treeswitch)
├─ smoke-test.sh   # non-destructive test (sandbox HOME + throwaway git repo)
└─ README.md

~/.treeswitch/  # runtime
├─ config.zsh       # YOUR config (edit this one)
├─ state/<repo>.active   # active worktree path
├─ state/<repo>.pgid     # launched process-group id
├─ cache/<repo>.prs      # branch→PR map (refreshed in background)
└─ logs/<repo>.log[.prev]

Install

brew install --cask swiftbar              # if you don't have it
./install.sh ~/swiftbar-plugins           # link plugin + seed config
open "swiftbar://refreshallplugins"       # tell a running SwiftBar to reload

install.sh links the plugin into SwiftBar's plugin folder. Pass that folder as the first argument (or set $SWIFTBAR_PLUGIN_DIR); it defaults to SwiftBar's standard ~/Library/Application Support/SwiftBar/Plugins. SwiftBar stores its configured folder as a security-scoped bookmark, so it can't be auto-detected — pass whatever you set under SwiftBar → Preferences → Plugin Folder.

Run ./smoke-test.sh after changing the plugin — it checks syntax, clean menu rendering, and the action dispatcher without touching your real repos or ports.

Configure

No config file to write by hand. On first launch the menu shows a ➕ Add your first repo… item; the same ➕ Add repo… lives in the footer afterwards. It opens a native Finder folder picker for the repo, then prompts for a name, a port, and the start command — and writes the config block for you. The repo is validated as a real git checkout before it's added.

Each repo's submenu also has ✎ Edit repo… (the same prompts, pre-filled) and ✕ Remove repo… (drops it from the menu only — your repo, worktrees, and any running server are untouched). Edit/Remove rewrite the config to a canonical form and save the previous version as config.zsh.bak, so a hand-written layout with comments or $HOME paths gets normalized on the first edit (nothing is lost).

Prefer editing by hand? Open ~/.treeswitch/config.zsh (the menu's Edit config opens it). Each repo is a key in REPO_KEYS with matching entries in the arrays:

field	meaning
LABEL	submenu title
REPO	path to the repo whose worktrees are listed
PORT	port to free before (re)starting
CMD	command to launch the server
WORKDIR	subdir of the worktree to run CMD from (. = root)
NPM_INSTALL	1 to npm install when node_modules is missing
OPEN_URL	URL for the "Open …" item (default localhost:PORT)

Globals: CONFIRM_KILL=1 adds a confirm dialog before killing a running server; SHOW_PRS=0 turns off the GitHub PR-number annotations.

Add a third repo by appending its key to REPO_KEYS and filling in the arrays. No code changes needed.

Notes

• The plugin is symlinked, so edits to treeswitch.10s.sh here take effect on the next refresh. Config is copied on first install so reinstalling won't clobber your edits.
• Stream log runs tail -F in Terminal.

License

MIT © Sindre Johannessen