#3737th of 63 in Coding agents and assistants

firstmate

Agent distro that lets one chat agent dispatch parallel coding agents in git worktrees

Stars: 7.9k
License: MIT
Last commit: Oct 2026
Language: Shell

Missed the latest GitHub check; these facts may be older.

Overview

firstmate is a cloned repo of AGENTS.md instructions, bundled skills and shell helper scripts. Launched inside a terminal coding agent such as Claude Code, Grok, Pi, Codex or Cursor Agent CLI, it becomes a single "first mate" you talk to. It spawns crewmate agents in tmux, Herdr, Zellij, cmux or Orca sessions, gives each a clean git worktree, supervises them with a bash watcher, and returns PRs, local merges or investigation reports.

Who it is for: Developers running several coding agents in parallel from the terminal

Strengths

Each task runs in its own treehouse or Orca worktree, so parallel work on one repo does not collide
Crewmates are visible tmux windows or Herdr tabs you can watch or type into
State is kept on disk, so a restarted session reconciles the fleet
Per-project modes: no-mistakes, direct-PR or local-only, with optional +yolo merge autonomy

Weaknesses

Needs a separate primary harness (Claude Code, Grok, Pi, Codex, etc.); it is not standalone
Zellij, cmux and Orca backends are marked experimental
Supervision and turn-end guard behavior differs across harnesses; Codex and OpenCode carry more tradeoffs
Supports macOS and Linux only; GitHub CLI authentication is required

What it needs

no GPU
Needs git, GitHub CLI (gh), tmux (default backend), treehouse, a supported agent harness (Claude Code, Grok, Pi, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor Agent CLI)
Models: Claude Code, Grok, Pi, Oh My Pi, Codex

Also in Coding agents and assistants

See all 63

Also in Coding agents and assistants
Rank	Project	Score
1	claw-codeRust CLI coding agent harness using Anthropic and OpenAI-compatible APIs194.9k starsMIT	83 out of 100
2	ArchonYAML workflow engine that runs AI coding agents through fixed dev steps23.7k starsMIT	80 out of 100
3	opencodeTerminal coding agent with build and plan modes, plus a desktop app213.5k starsMIT	79 out of 100
#4	piTerminal coding agent with extensions, skills, and an SDK115.2k starsMIT	79 out of 100
#5	oh-my-openagentTerminal coding agent with multi-model orchestration and git-backed memory70k starscustom license	79 out of 100

How to choose

Check which models it can use: your own keys, local models, or only the vendor's.
See what it may do without asking (edit files, run shell, push) and how you approve.
Prefer agents that work in a branch or worktree you can throw away.

Health

Releases: Not checked
Top contributor: Not checked
Security advisories: Not checked
Package advisories: Not checked
OpenSSF Scorecard: Not checked

Not read for this project yet: each refresh reads the facts of a few projects. Bots and coding-agent accounts are left out of the commit counts. Not part of the score: how we check.

License in plain words

MIT Permissive

Use it at work: Yes
Change it and rebrand it: Yes
Sell it or host it for others: Yes

Your part: Keep the copyright and license notice in copies you ship.

A plain summary, not legal advice. Read the license on GitHub ↗ (opens in a new tab)

#37 of 63 in Coding agents and assistants on Archestack, as of 15 Oct 2026.

In your README

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A card with the rank, score and signals, in light or dark to match the reader.

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Best of Vibe Coding on GitHub

Each review comes from the project's README and facts we check on GitHub. The fix form opens with firstmate filled in.