On using worktrees

Worktrees are a git device that allows you to work on several branches simultaneously. Since this Boris Cherny tweet (and, as far as I can tell, largely because of it), worktrees have become a standard recommended device for agentic programming. I agree with the apparent consensus that worktrees are an essential tool in modern programming. When you need them, they're vastly better than alternatives. But I don't use them very much, for a few reasons: Work that can be done in parallel can often be done on a single branch without conflicts. Work that cannot be done in parallel without conflict often benefits from being addressed together, either as part of a larger single task or as a serial set of tasks. (Putting these two points as a dilemma: tasks either operate mostly independently on your codebase, in which case there's no harm in keeping them on one branch, or they don't, in which case it's often better not to defer the conflict.) Relatedly: LLMs are better and better at handling…