Terminal support¶
autowt automates your terminal by default¶
autowt's intended user experience is that it will open terminal tabs on your behalf. It uses automate-terminal to accomplish this, so check that project out to find out if your terminal is supported.
What to do if your terminal isn't supported or you don't want this behavior¶
Add this to your .autowt.toml or set it at the user level with autowt config:
This will cause autowt to print commands to the console instead of having your terminal run them automatically. You can then manually run the printed commands to navigate to the worktree.
Shell integration (alternative to terminal automation)¶
Instead of opening new tabs or windows, you can have autowt change directories directly in your current shell. This is useful if your terminal isn't supported by automate-terminal, or if you prefer staying in one session.
Add the appropriate line to your shell config:
# ~/.bashrc
eval "$(autowt shell-init bash)"
# ~/.zshrc
eval "$(autowt shell-init zsh)"
# ~/.config/fish/config.fish
autowt shell-init fish | source
The shell argument can be omitted if $SHELL matches your config file (i.e., your login shell is the same as the shell you're configuring). When in doubt, pass it explicitly.
Once configured, running autowt my-branch will cd into the worktree in your current shell instead of opening a new tab or window. No terminal automation (AppleScript, tmux, etc.) is required, so this works in any terminal.
Commands that don't switch worktrees (ls, cleanup, config, etc.) continue to work normally.
To preview what the shell function would do without actually changing directories: