{"slug": "show-hn-multistack-a-tui-environment-for-parallel-coding-agents", "title": "Show HN: Multistack, a TUI environment for parallel coding agents", "summary": "Multistack, a new open-source TUI environment, lets developers run multiple zerostack coding agents side by side in a terminal, with features for spawning, watching, renaming, and killing processes. The tool, positioned as a lightweight competitor to Conductor, supports live status tracking, per-agent timers, and direct TTY access, and is installable via Homebrew, curl, or Cargo.", "body_md": "Run multiple [zerostack](https://gi-dellav.github.io/zerostack/) agents side by side in your terminal, allowing to spawn, watch, rename, kill all underlying processes.\n\nMultistack is designed to be a native, lightweight and open-soruce competitor to [Conductor](https://www.conductor.build).\n\n- **Spawn parallel agents** : each one gets its own PTY, running`zerostack --parallel` under the hood\n- **Live status tracking** : see at a glance who's working`[~]` , done`[✓]` , dead`[X]` , or waiting`[ ]` , with per-agent timers\n- **Drop into any agent** : hit Enter on a process to see its full terminal output, keystrokes pass straight through\n- **Status signal support** : multistack listens for`start` /`stop` signals from zerostack via Unix sockets, so timers and indicators stay accurate even across headless loop iterations\n\n```\nbrew tap gi-dellav/tap\nbrew trust gi-dellav/tap   # required for Homebrew 6.0.0+\nbrew install multistack    # zerostack installed automatically\ncurl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gi-dellav/multistack/main/install.sh | bash\ncargo install multistack\n```\n\nYou need [zerostack](https://gi-dellav.github.io/zerostack/) on your PATH, plus a recent Rust toolchain.\n\n| Key | Action | \n|---|---|\n| `n` | Spawn new agent — prompts for a name, creates a git worktree | \n| `N` | Spawn new agent in parallel mode — no prompt, jumps straight to TTY | \n| `m` | Spawn bare agent — no worktree, no `--parallel` , jumps to TTY | \n| `p` | Add project — opens directory picker | \n| `l` | Remove project and all its agents | \n| `h` | Open `lazygit` in the project (or agent worktree) directory | \n| `s` | Open `$SHELL` in the project (or agent worktree) directory | \n| `r` | Rename selected agent | \n| `d` | Delete (kill) selected agent | \n| `Enter` | Drop into the selected agent's TTY | \n| `↑` /`↓` | Move selection | \n| `PageUp` /`PageDown` | Jump to previous / next project header | \n| `?` /`F1` | Scrollable help overlay (keybindings, statuses, tips) | \n| `q` | Quit — shows confirmation with agent counts ( `Enter` quits,`Esc` /`n` stays) | \n| `Esc` | Quit (confirmation; git conflicts get a warning) | \n\n| Key | Action | \n|---|---|\n| `Esc` | Return to agent list | \n| *All other keys* | Forwarded to the underlying process | \n\n| Key | Action | \n|---|---|\n| `Enter` | Confirm | \n| `Esc` | Cancel | \n| `Backspace` | Delete last character | \n| *Printable chars* | Append to input | \n\n| Key | Action | \n|---|---|\n| `Enter` | Add selected directory as a project | \n| `Esc` | Cancel, return to agent list | \n| `/` | Start filtering directories (type to narrow, `Esc` to clear) | \n| *All other keys* | Navigate the file tree | \n\n- **Linux/BSD/macOS** (uses Unix domain sockets and PTYs)\n- **zerostack v1.5+** built with the`status-signals` feature (default from v1.5)\n- Rust 1.85+ (2024 edition)\n\nGPL-3.0-only", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-multistack-a-tui-environment-for-parallel-coding-agents", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/gi-dellav/multistack/tree/main", "published_at": "2026-09-08 14:39:59+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-08 14:59:18.543546+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools", "ai-agents", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Multistack", "zerostack", "Conductor", "Homebrew", "Cargo", "gi-dellav"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-multistack-a-tui-environment-for-parallel-coding-agents", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-multistack-a-tui-environment-for-parallel-coding-agents.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-multistack-a-tui-environment-for-parallel-coding-agents.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-multistack-a-tui-environment-for-parallel-coding-agents.jsonld"}}