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foremerge

Coordination protocol for parallel coding agents above Git: agents declare intent in a shared SQLite store, and a deterministic detector flags plan collisions before code is written.

518 21 Rust Apache-2.0updated 3 days ago
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Worktrees stopped agents clobbering files, not undoing each other: one agent replaces PaymentService while another extends it, Git merges both cleanly, and the feature is stranded. Foremerge has agents declare what they are about to change (symbols and operations) before editing, and a deterministic detector, no LLM judge, raises advisories when plans collide. It never locks, so a crashed agent cannot stall the fleet, and it works through CLI, JSON API, MCP and an installed skill. Honest status: a 0.5 pre-1.0 MVP, one maintainer, one machine only, no published benchmarks yet, and it only works if every agent actually declares intent. Worth trying once you routinely run several agents on one repo.

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README.md3 min read

Foremerge

Foremerge: Catch intent conflicts before code conflicts

CI crates.io License: Apache-2.0

Foremerge is the open-source coordination protocol for coding agents, built above Git. Agents keep isolated worktrees while sharing intent, semantic claims, dependencies, provisional ChangeSets, decisions, validation, and provenance.

Tell your agent to install → Done → See collisions before they land
Paste one line into Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor It installs Foremerge and wires itself up Every agent sees what the others are about to change, even in separate worktrees

Status: Foremerge 0.5.0 is a pre-1.0, local-first MVP. The CLI, JSON API, MCP server, SQLite store, deterministic conflict detector, and verification-gated lifecycle are implemented. Public schemas may still change. Published benchmark results do not yet exist, and coordination between machines is outside this project's scope.

How it works

Say you have two AI agents working on the same project at the same time. Each one gets its own copy of the code, so they never fight over files. Both finish. Both look correct. Then you find they undid each other's work.

Git cannot warn you about that, because Git compares text and not intent. It will stop you when two agents edit the same part of the same file. What it cannot see is two edits that are each perfectly reasonable on their own and land in different files. If one agent moves every caller onto a new StripePaymentService while another adds PayPal support to the old PaymentService, nothing overlaps, so Git merges both without complaint and the PayPal work is left stranded on a class nothing calls any more.

Foremerge fixes this by having agents announce what they are about to do, before they do it.

  1. Each agent says what it is about to touch. Not the code, just the target, like "I am going to change the sendEmail function."
  2. Every agent reads from one shared list. It is a small database inside your project's .git folder, so every agent on your machine sees the same picture, whether it is Claude, Codex, or Cursor.
  3. If two plans collide, you hear about it right away. Foremerge names the two agents, explains why their plans clash, and suggests how to split the work. Both worktrees are still clean at that point, so no work has to be thrown away.

Think of it as a shared whiteboard. Before an agent starts, it writes down what it is about to work on, and it reads what everyone else already wrote.

Two things Foremerge deliberately does not do. It never locks a file or blocks an agent, because a single crashed agent would then stall the whole fleet, so the warnings are advisory and you stay in charge. And it never asks a model to judge conflicts, so the same inputs always produce the same answer.

The conflict Git cannot see yet

Agent A: Replace PaymentService with StripePaymentService
Agent B: Add PayPal support to PaymentService

These agents can work in different trees without touching the same line. The plans still collide: one removes the extension point while the other depends on it.

Both agents declare the same symbol:PaymentService scope, one saying it will replace it and the other that it will extend it. Foremerge compares those two declarations before either writes code, raises a HIGH advisory, and suggests coordinating on a stable abstraction such as PaymentProvider. That suggestion is explain