ParadevAI/Paradev

Paradev is for developers who already pay for a CLI coding agent and want several tasks in flight at once without juggling terminal tabs. It packages parallel agent sessions, review and preview into one desktop app; it will not replace your agent or your subscription.

The problem

You want an agent to attempt a small UI change, a billing migration or a PR fix while you keep reviewing another attempt. Driving this from plain shells means creating worktrees by hand, launching an agent in each, remembering which terminal maps to which branch, then switching to a browser to see the result and to a diff tool or GitHub to review the patch. Paradev changes that: a workspace owns a worktree and terminals, the agent runs inside it, and changes, tests and a dev-server preview are inspected in the same window before you commit. The result is that parallel attempts become a routine way to work rather than a manual chore.

What's different

The central mechanism is workspace isolation through Git worktrees: each task gets its own branch and terminals, and the browser pane detects ports per workspace, so separate dev servers can run alongside each other. That makes side-by-side comparison practical — for example, trying two approaches to one problem and keeping the preferred result — without shuffling stashes or branch switches in a single checkout. The app also meets the agent where it already lives: you keep your existing Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor Agent, Amp or Antigravity CLI subscription and Paradev orchestrates the session around it, rather than reselling model access.

The review loop is the other notable design choice. The diff viewer lets you comment on and edit agent changes in place, and PR code review can route selected diff lines back into a running or new agent session, with posting to GitHub optional. Design Mode goes further by letting you click an element in the preview and send that element context to an agent. The important trade-off is stated by the project itself: worktrees separate working files but do not sandbox processes and do not prevent merge conflicts. Running many agents therefore increases both machine load and the coordination work of merging branches, so the tool raises your throughput ceiling only if your review and merge discipline scales with it.

Who should try it

A good fit is a developer on macOS who already uses one or more supported CLI agents and regularly has two to five independent changes to make in the same repository. The per-workspace port detection and browser pane pay off especially for web apps, where each attempt needs its own running dev server. A poor fit is someone who works in a single checkout at a time, uses an agent only occasionally, or expects the app to provide the model subscription; Paradev deliberately builds on agents you already have.

Windows users are currently out of luck, since no Windows build is listed, while Linux is offered as experimental with macOS as the primary target. Teams that need process-level isolation between untrusted agent runs should not mistake worktrees for a security boundary. Those wanting to inspect or adapt the internals can use the source under the repository's license.

Requirements and limitations

Git is the only hard prerequisite, and gh is optional for the PR workflows, with Paradev offering to install it. You also need a supported CLI agent already installed and authenticated under your own subscription; the app orchestrates that binary rather than supplying an agent or model. Installation is via a macOS Apple Silicon or Intel build, or a Linux x64 AppImage; Windows has no build yet, which rules the app out for Windows-primary teams until one appears.

Ongoing constraints come from the parallel model itself. Each workspace's terminals, dev server and agent consume local resources, and because worktrees do not sandbox processes, nothing stops an agent from touching things outside its working tree or from colliding with another branch at merge time. Expect to review and merge each result deliberately rather than treating parallel runs as fire-and-forget. The project says the desktop app is free forever, with paid optional services planned, and the code is under the Elastic License 2.0, which permits forking and self-hosting but not repackaging Paradev as a competing hosted service.

HotRepo's take

HotRepo's only recorded observation is a daily-board appearance on 2026-10-28 at 15,665 stars with +53 that day, and that single dated snapshot cannot establish whether interest is rising or fading. The repository was created in October 2025, so it is young and has little public track record to lean on. Before committing, check whether your specific agent is listed as fully supported in the supported agents documentation and whether the first workspace walkthrough matches your repository layout; those two points decide most of the fit.