21,795 stars · NOT OPEN SOURCE. Functional Source License 1.1 with an MIT Future License (FSL-1.1-MIT), read from /blob/master/LICENSE.md. GitHub's sidebar shows only the word 'License' and NAMES NO LICENCE AT ALL, because this is not one GitHub recognises · release/0.22.3 (2026-08-29), read from /releases/latest; the year was absent and was settled against ungh's releases endpoint, which dates it 2026-08-29T07:58:12Z. No package registry applies · Track this in Scout
A desktop git client that keeps several unrelated changes on separate branches without switching.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it does
You point it at a git folder you already have. It shows the changes in your working copy and lets you assign each file, or each part of a file, to one of several branches that are all active at once. It commits, amends, rewords, splits, squashes and moves commits by dragging, and restacks the dependent branches automatically when you amend something underneath them. It keeps a timeline you can undo from. Conflicts work differently here: a rebase "always succeeds", and you resolve the conflicts afterwards, in any order you like. It opens and updates pull requests on three hosting services, and it has built-in helpers that write commit messages and branch descriptions. What it does not do is come with any stated limits in its README — the limits are in the licence and in the developer notes, where one dependency "doesn't currently compile on ARM" for Windows and the development server can fail to start on a case-sensitive macOS disk.
Why it matters
Who it suits. People who regularly have two or three unrelated changes in flight and lose time to stashing and switching. It also suits anyone who finds rebasing stressful, because the always-succeeds model moves the hard part to a moment of your choosing. Skip it if you work on one thing at a time, because the whole benefit disappears. And skip it if your organisation requires OSI-approved open-source licences for its tooling, because this is not one.
Verdict. Worth an evening on a real project, because the idea only makes sense once you have felt it. The licence is the thing to read first, and the entry ranks it above the features for that reason. It is the Functional Source License, version 1.1 with an MIT future grant, and GitHub's sidebar cannot even name it — the page shows the word "License" and no licence name, because this is not a licence GitHub recognises. The terms forbid making the software available in a commercial product or service that "substitutes for the Software" or "offers the same or substantially similar functionality as the Software", and grant you the MIT licence on each version two years after it ships. For an individual or a team using it internally, that restriction costs nothing. For anyone building a product, it is the whole question. Two smaller notes: it is version 0.22.3, still before 1.0, and the development setup collects build-tool telemetry by default, which you turn off with pnpm exec turbo telemetry disable. If the licence is a problem, jj-vcs/jj and jesseduffield/lazygit are the two live alternatives.
- It works on any existing git folder with no conversion and no change to the repository format.
- Several unrelated changes stay separate without stashing or switching, and dependent branches restack themselves.
- Code landed on the morning of this edition, and it has been going since January 2023.
- Not open source. The licence forbids a competing commercial product and only becomes MIT two years after each release.
- Version 0.22.3, before 1.0, and the README states no limitations at all, so the only written boundaries are in the licence and the developer notes.
- Build-tool telemetry is collected by default in the development setup, and a company with a hosted service stands behind the project.
- jesseduffield/lazygit
A terminal git interface at 83,102 stars, MIT, which makes ordinary git faster to drive rather than changing how branches work.
Track this in Scout - jj-vcs/jj
A different version-control model that still stores everything in a git repository, at 31,295 stars, and the closest match for the always-succeeds idea.
Track this in Scout - arxanas/git-branchless
A set of commands for working on many small branches at once, at 4,119 stars, as plain git commands rather than a window.
Track this in Scout
# Debian or Ubuntu, the system packages first sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev build-essential curl wget file \ libxdo-dev libssl-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev cmake # Then the project pnpm install cargo build pnpm dev:desktop # Command-line tool only cargo build -p but