Quickstart

From a git repository to three concurrent changes, one of them stale, all resolved.

The output below is a real session, with home-directory paths shortened.

Install

cargo install zit --locked     # from crates.io

Needs Rust 1.88+ and git 2.38+.

Start the graph

In any git repository with at least one commit:

$ git zit init
current is f239ffed45

HEAD is now the current state. Nothing else in the repository changed.

The example repository has two files and one check (bob’s change, below, adds a third, src/shop.rs):

pub fn price(x: u32) -> u32 {
    x
}

pub fn tax(x: u32) -> u32 {
    x / 10
}

[[check]]
name = "no-todo"
run = "! grep -rn TODO src"
inputs = ["src"]

Make a change

$ git zit materialise --agent alice --intent "price takes a tax argument"
~/.zit/shop-36c21a74e718d1ac/ws/15f7a98b/tree

That directory holds the current state. Edit files there with anything. Then, from inside it:

$ git zit record --dispose
d7a928567d69813f3c8edb83c40eac0b308e2ea2
  wrote src/lib.rs#price

The change is in the graph; the directory is gone. wrote is derived from the edit: one symbol, not one file.

With an agent, the three steps are one command:

zit run --agent claude --intent "price takes a tax argument"

Three agents at once

Two more changes were made the same way, from the same starting state: bob made buy call price(3), carol changed the body of tax.

$ git zit status
current  f239ffed45  you  1s  Shop

CHANGES (3)
  3fc1fff629  speculative        bob          0s  buy calls price
  d7a928567d  speculative        alice        0s  price takes a tax argument
  da8aef5292  speculative        carol        0s  tax is 20%

WORKSPACES (0)

Accept

$ git zit accept d7a928567d
current is d7a928567d (fast-forward; checks: 1 run, 0 reused)

Carol’s change was made against the old state, in the same file as alice’s, but in a different function:

$ git zit accept da8aef5292
current is 87f2622acc (composed onto current; checks: 1 run, 0 reused)

Bob’s change calls price with one argument. Alice changed its signature. They touch different files, so git would merge them:

$ git zit accept 3fc1fff629
rejected: stale
  src/lib.rs#price read here, written by d7a928567d (alice: price takes a tax argument)
next: `zit retry <change>` rebuilds it on current for the agent to reconsider

Exit code 1. Nothing was merged, nothing was deleted:

$ git zit status
current  87f2622acc  carol  0s  Compose da8aef5292: tax is 20%

CHANGES (1)
  3fc1fff629  invalid: stale     bob          0s  buy calls price
              src/lib.rs#price read here, written by d7a928567d

WORKSPACES (0)

Retry

$ git zit retry 3fc1fff629
~/.zit/shop-36c21a74e718d1ac/ws/024e8f1e/tree

A new workspace on the current state, with bob’s edit applied. Fix the call there, then:

$ git zit record --dispose
bfd0170ca679273c88a86755cdaf654bff8a886b
  wrote src/shop.rs#buy
$ git zit accept bfd0170ca6
current is bfd0170ca6 (fast-forward; checks: 1 run, 0 reused)
$ git zit discard 3fc1fff629

Publish to git

$ git zit export --branch main
main is bfd0170ca6
$ git log --graph --format='%h %an: %s' main
*   bfd0170 bob: buy calls price
|\
| * 3fc1fff bob: buy calls price
* |   87f2622 carol: Compose da8aef5292: tax is 20%
|\ \
| * | da8aef5 carol: tax is 20%
| |/
* / d7a9285 alice: price takes a tax argument
|/
* f239ffe you: Shop

The history records what happened, including bob’s first attempt as the second parent of his fix. Throughout, no branch and no worktree was created:

$ git branch
* main
$ git worktree list
/path/to/shop  bfd0170 [main]

Next

• Concepts explains why bob’s change was stale.
• Agents connects Autohand Code, Claude Code, Codex and Pi.
• Checks explains checks: 1 run, 0 reused.
• zit web draws all of this live in the browser; zit ui does it in the terminal, with keys to accept, check, retry and discard.