herdr-projects: Multi-Agent Parallel Branch Orchestration for the Herdr Ecosystem
A look at herdr-projects, a Herdr plugin letting a single coordinator run parallel agent threads across dedicated Git branches with sidebar progress tracking an
Developer Elias Stråvik (@eliasstravik) has released 'herdr-projects', an orchestration plugin designed for the Herdr multi-agent terminal harness. Reaching the top 15 all-time Herdr plugins within 48 hours of its public release, the project enables developers to talk directly to a single coordinator agent to automatically branch, distribute, and execute parallel coding tasks across dedicated Git branches.
Image source: Elias Stråvik (@eliasstravik)
The plugin addresses the operational friction of coordinating multiple CLI coding agents simultaneously, turning manual window switching and branch management into an automated terminal workflow.
Single Coordinator Architecture and Branch-Isolated Parallel Execution
Herdr natively allows developers to run diverse terminal-based coding agents—such as Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode—side by side in split panes and tabs. While Herdr provides low-level inter-agent primitives like agent.send, agent.read, and agent.list, running multiple agents on distinct tasks previously required users to manually context-switch across PTY sessions, copy and paste prompt context, and manually manage Git branch checkouts.
herdr-projects resolves this manual coordination overhead through a centralized coordinator architecture:
- Single Point of Interaction: Users communicate exclusively with a single coordinator agent. The coordinator evaluates the broader task, decomposes it into parallel subtasks, and assigns them to the appropriate underlying agents.
- Branch-Level Isolation: Each worker thread automatically operates on its own dedicated Git branch within the repository. This ensures that simultaneous file edits performed by different agents remain fully isolated, preventing filesystem conflicts during concurrent execution.
- Flexible Agent Dispatch: The coordinator can spin up any supported agent across parallel threads, allowing developers to pair specific models or agent CLI tools with specialized tasks such as feature implementation, refactoring, or test suite generation.
Real-Time Monitoring and Lifecycle Management: prefix+a and Auto-Cleanup
As the number of concurrent agent threads scales up, tracking progress across background tasks and managing finished work becomes essential. herdr-projects builds directly on Herdr's terminal interface to provide streamlined visibility and lifecycle cleanup:
- Live Sidebar Progress: The Herdr sidebar displays real-time completion percentages (%) for each active thread, allowing developers to monitor overall job progression without toggling away from their primary workspace.
- prefix+a Centralized Popup: Entering the terminal keybinding
prefix+ainstantly summons a modal overlay listing all active projects and threads, providing quick access and overview in a single pane. - Automated Thread Cleanup on Merge: Once an agent thread completes its designated scope and its branch is merged back into the main line, the plugin automatically cleans up the corresponding worker thread and temporary workspace state, preventing dangling branches and orphan PTY processes from accumulating.
Installation Path and Operational Considerations
herdr-projects installs via Herdr's standard plugin management interface with a single command:
herdr plugin install eliasstravik/herdr-projects
When evaluating the tool for developer workflows, consider the following operational requirements and scope boundaries:
- Herdr Runtime Prerequisite: The plugin requires an active and properly configured Herdr terminal environment; it cannot function as a standalone command-line tool outside of Herdr.
- Single-Repository Scope: Branch isolation is currently designed around single-repository workflows. Cross-repository orchestration—spanning multiple services or external submodules—is not supported natively in the initial release, though community feedback has already highlighted it as a future area of interest.
For teams and individual developers already running multi-agent workflows in Herdr, herdr-projects offers a practical automation layer that eliminates the overhead of manual branch juggling and multi-terminal supervision.