Quick Start: Per-Branch CLI Mode

This walkthrough shows how to assign different AI CLIs to different branches — useful when you want to compare AI assistants or use specialized tools for specific tasks.

Scenario

You have three branches and want to use:

Claude for the auth feature (complex logic)
Codex for the API work (lots of boilerplate)
Aider for the database refactor (incremental edits)

Step 1: Launch git-paw

cd ~/projects/my-app
git paw

(If neither your repo nor your global config has a [supervisor] section, git-paw first asks Start in supervisor mode? [y/N] — answer n.)

Step 2: Select branches

Select branches (type to filter, ctrl-u to clear, space to toggle, enter to confirm)
filter:
  [x] feat/api
  [x] feat/auth
  [ ] main
> [x] refactor/db

Type to filter the list (case-insensitive substring match); selections persist across filter changes, and Ctrl-U clears the filter.

Step 3: Select per-branch mode

CLI assignment mode:
  Same CLI for all branches
> Different CLI per branch

Step 4: Assign a CLI to each branch

git-paw prompts you for each selected branch in turn (in the order they are listed above):

Select CLI for feat/api:
  Aider (aider)
  Claude (claude)
> Codex (codex)

Select CLI for feat/auth:
  Aider (aider)
> Claude (claude)
  Codex (codex)

Select CLI for refactor/db:
> Aider (aider)
  Claude (claude)
  Codex (codex)

Step 5: Watch it launch

git-paw creates a worktree per branch, opens the paw-my-app tmux session with each branch’s chosen CLI in its own pane, and attaches you to it — nothing else is printed on success.

Each pane’s border label shows its pane index and branch (with [broker] enabled = true, the dashboard takes pane 0 and the agents start at pane 1):

┌─── 0: feat/api ───────────────┬─── 1: feat/auth ──────────────┐
│                                │                                │
│  Codex is ready...             │  Claude is ready to help...    │
│                                │                                │
├─── 2: refactor/db ────────────┴────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                 │
│  Aider v0.x loaded...                                           │
│                                                                 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Comparing approaches

Per-branch mode is great for:

A/B testing AI assistants — give the same task to Claude and Codex, compare results
Specialization — use a code-generation-focused tool for boilerplate and a reasoning-focused tool for complex logic
Trying new tools — test a new AI CLI on one branch while using your trusted tool on others

Recovery

Session state captures the per-branch CLI assignments. If your terminal closes or tmux crashes:

git paw

git-paw detects the saved session, recreates tmux, and relaunches each branch with its assigned CLI — no re-selection needed.

Next Steps

User Guide — session management, presets, dry-run, and more
Configuration — save per-branch presets in config

Keyboard shortcuts

git-paw