Give each coding agent its own git worktree and its own small task, keep to about three at a time, and review every diff before it merges. You can set that up by hand with git, or let Friday, a free MIT desktop app, make the worktrees and keep the board and the review in one place. This guide was checked on 4 November 2026.
Why run more than one agent?
Your work shouldn’t own your day. With one agent you wait, and waiting is the part that eats an afternoon. With three, you decide what to build next while the last thing is still being built, and your time goes on the decisions that need you.
You also get to use each tool for what it is good at: one agent for a quick fix, another for a bigger change, a third to check the work. Running them side by side is how you get a team instead of one assistant.
How do you do it by hand?
Every agent needs its own copy of the repository, or two of them will edit the same files. In git that is a worktree: a second working folder on its own branch, sharing the same history. These are the steps, using commands from the git manual.
- Make one worktree per task, each on a new branch:
git worktree add -b fix-upload-test ../repo-fix-upload-test. List them any time withgit worktree list. - Start one agent in each folder. Give it a small, bounded task and say what done looks like, such as a test that passes.
- Let them run. Keep the tasks apart so no two agents are changing the same files.
- Review each diff yourself before anything merges. Merge one branch at a time and run the tests after each.
- When a branch is merged, remove its worktree with
git worktree remove ../repo-fix-upload-test.
Git refuses to check out the same branch in two worktrees unless you force it, and its manual calls multiple checkouts of one repository experimental in places, so give every agent its own branch.
How many agents can you really run?
About three, for most people. Open WebUI’s guide to parallel agents on worktrees says “three is a comfortable ceiling” and that the bottleneck becomes your review bandwidth. That is one source’s advice, not a law, but it matches what limits you: you can start agents faster than you can read what they did.
A worktree keeps agents out of each other’s files. It does not keep them from making conflicting choices, or share what one learned with another. Our guide to running coding agents in parallel covers those cases, and running several on one repo covers splitting the work.
What does Friday do for you?
Friday is the same idea with the setup and the watching done for you. It runs your coding agents on your own computer, each able to work in its own git worktree, with a task board in place of a row of terminals.
| By hand | In Friday | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | You create and remove each worktree and start each agent | Each agent can work in its own git worktree, made for you |
| Tracking the work | Terminal tabs and your memory | A task board |
| Review | Read each diff in git, then merge | Review each run’s changes line by line, with notes that go back to the agent |
| A tool hits its usage limit | You copy the context to another agent yourself | The task moves to another agent with a record of what the first did and changed |
Last checked: 4 November 2026
The agents run on your computer, so they stop if it sleeps. Keep it awake while they work.
To start, see getting started, and how to use Claude Code, Codex and Cursor together. If you are choosing which tools to run, see open-source AI coding tools, with licences checked.
What is Friday?
Friday is a free, open-source (MIT) harness for coding agents that work as a team. It runs on your own computer with no account: the desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, or one command with Node.js 22 and Git.
- Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and 13 more coding tools (16 by name, plus any ACP agent) run side by side on their own plans and sign-ins.
- One agent splits a job into a task board, the others pick up tasks, and every finished task is checked before it counts as done.
- Agents message each other as they work, and each can work in its own copy of the repository.
- When a tool runs out of usage mid-task, the task moves to the agent best placed to finish it.
- Review each run’s changes line by line, with git built in.
- No account; anonymous usage counts you can turn off; it listens on 127.0.0.1 only.
Install it with npx github:splashxmoon/friday or from GitHub; see the docs. Friday Team, the hosted version for several people in one session, is available to companies: talk to us.