forestui

A terminal UI for managing Git worktrees, inspired by forest for macOS by @ricwo.

forestui brings the power of Git worktree management to the terminal with a beautiful TUI interface built on Textual, featuring deep integration with Claude Code.

Features

• Repository Management: Add and track multiple Git repositories
• Worktree Operations: Create, rename, archive, and delete worktrees
• TUI Editor Integration: Opens TUI editors (vim, nvim, helix, etc.) in tmux windows
• Claude Code Integration: Track and resume Claude Code sessions per worktree
• Multi-Forest Support: Manage multiple forest directories via CLI argument
• tmux Native: Runs inside tmux for a cohesive terminal experience

Requirements

• Python 3.14+
• tmux
• uv (for installation)
• gh (optional, for GitHub integration)

Installing

Quick Install (recommended)

Installs uv automatically if not present. No Python installation required.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flipbit03/forestui/main/install.sh | bash

Install via uv

If you already have uv installed:

uv tool install forestui

Updating

forestui auto-updates on startup. To manually update:

uv tool upgrade forestui

Usage

# Start with default forest directory (~/forest)
forestui

# Start with a custom forest directory
forestui ~/my-projects

# Show help
forestui --help

Keyboard Shortcuts

TUI Editor Integration

When your default editor is a TUI editor (vim, nvim, helix, nano, etc.), forestui opens it in a new tmux window named edit:<worktree>. This keeps your editing session organized alongside forestui and any Claude sessions.

Supported TUI editors: vim, nvim, vi, emacs, nano, helix, hx, micro, kakoune, kak

Multi-Forest Support

forestui stores its state (.forestui-config.json) in the forest directory itself, allowing you to manage multiple independent forests:

forestui ~/work      # Uses ~/work/.forestui-config.json
forestui ~/personal  # Uses ~/personal/.forestui-config.json

User preferences (editor, theme, branch prefix) are stored globally in ~/.config/forestui/settings.json.

Configuration

Settings are stored in ~/.config/forestui/settings.json:

{
  "default_editor": "nvim",
  "branch_prefix": "feat/",
  "theme": "system"
}

Press s in the app to open the settings modal.

Development

# Clone and enter the repo
git clone https://github.com/flipbit03/forestui.git
cd forestui

# Install dev dependencies
make dev

# Run checks
make check

# Format code
make format

# Run the app
make run

See CLAUDE.md for AI-assisted development guidelines.

Compatibility with forest (macOS)

forestui is designed to coexist with forest for macOS:

• Both apps can share the same ~/forest directory for worktrees
• Each app maintains its own state file:
  • forest: .forest-config.json (stored in ~/.config/forest/)
  • forestui: .forestui-config.json (stored in the forest folder itself)
• Worktrees created by either app work seamlessly with both

Key difference: forestui stores its state inside the forest folder (~/forest/.forestui-config.json) rather than in a global config directory. This design enables multi-forest support - you can run forestui ~/work and forestui ~/personal with completely independent state for each.

License

MIT