Brennan Benson 1b8301e6e3 feat(native-chat): give a structured session a surface-holder lifetime
Nothing told the host that a chat WANTED a session, and nothing told it when
one stopped. Both halves cost real processes: closing a chat left its codex
app-server running until the app quit (9 orphans, 420 MB, oldest 21 hours),
and every launch resumed a child for every record on disk — `released` with no
handoff in flight is the normal end state of a cleanly closed chat, so a
healthy profile respawned everything it had ever opened, in parallel, with no
client attached.

A surface takes a HOLD when it binds and drops it when it goes away: the
desktop chat view, the paired mobile session view. Holders are a SET, not a
count — every release path can fire twice or not at all, and an integer cannot
tell a duplicate release from a lost one. Transport close is the backstop, not
the mechanism: a phone that loses signal never sends its release, so the hold
registers a cleanup against its connection, and a live subscription holds the
session on its own.

Eviction runs the existing steps, unreordered, under a per-step deadline: a
step that times out aborts the rest, which leaves the session indexed and the
child LOADED rather than killed. The clock starts when the last holder leaves
and re-arms while a turn is running, so a session is never stopped mid-answer.
Teardown now also hands the lease back — a record left claiming a live owner is
one nothing can resume.

Startup no longer resumes anything. It reconciles, exits recovery, and restores
the journal for READING; a provider child exists because a surface asked for
the session. Paired builds that predate holds keep working: they do not
advertise `agent-session.structured.hold.v1`, and for them a subscription is
the resuming kind of hold.
2026-08-19 14:22:12 -07:00
2026-07-11 20:53:20 -07:00
2026-05-04 20:42:03 -07:00
2026-03-16 22:27:51 -07:00
2026-03-28 10:19:14 -07:00

Orca Orca

GitHub stars Total downloads across all releases License: MIT Join the Orca Discord Follow Orca on X Supported platforms: macOS, Windows, and Linux

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The AI Orchestrator for 100x builders.
Run Codex, ClaudeCode, OpenCode or Pi side-by-side — each in its own worktree, tracked in one place.

Download Orca

Orca desktop app running agents in parallel worktrees, with the Orca mobile companion app in the corner

Features

Mobile Companion

Monitor and steer your agents from your phone — get notified when an agent finishes and send follow-ups from anywhere.

iOS App Store · TestFlight · Android APK 0.0.43 · Docs →

Orca desktop with the mobile companion app

Parallel Worktrees

Fan one prompt across five agents, each in its own isolated git worktree — compare the results and merge the winner.

Docs →

Parallel worktree orchestration

Terminal Splits

Ghostty-class terminals with WebGL rendering, infinite splits, and scrollback that survives restarts.

Docs →

Terminal splits

Design Mode

Click any UI element in a real Chromium window to send its HTML, CSS, and a cropped screenshot straight into your agent's prompt.

Docs →

Embedded browser and Design Mode

GitHub & Linear, Native

Browse PRs, issues, and project boards in-app — open a worktree from any task and review without a context switch.

Docs →

GitHub and Linear task workflows in Orca

SSH Worktrees

Run agents on a beefy remote box with full file editing, git, and terminals — auto-reconnect and port forwarding included.

Docs →

Remote worktrees over SSH

Annotate AI Diffs

Drop comments on any diff line and ship them back to the agent — review, edit, and commit without leaving Orca.

Docs →

Annotate AI-generated diffs

Drag Files to Agents

VS Code's editor with autosave everywhere — drag files or images straight into an agent prompt.

Docs →

Drag files and images into an agent prompt

Orca CLI

Agents drive Orca too — script every workflow with orca worktree create, snapshot, click, and fill.

Docs →

Script Orca from the CLI

Also in the box:

  • Quick open — Search across worktrees, files, agents, commands, and repo context without leaving your flow.
  • Account switcher & usage tracking — See Claude and Codex usage and rate-limit resets, and hot-swap accounts without re-logging in.
  • Rich repo previews — Preview Markdown, images, PDFs, and repo docs in the workspace.
  • Computer Use — Let agents operate desktop apps and visible UI when a workflow needs real interaction.
  • Notifications and unread state — Know when an agent finishes or needs attention, then mark threads unread to come back later.
  • And many, many more — we ship daily, so this list is perpetually behind. The changelog is the real feature list.

Supported Agents

Works with any CLI agent — if it runs in a terminal, it runs in Orca.

Claude Code logo Claude Code   Codex logo Codex   Grok logo Grok   Cursor logo Cursor   GitHub Copilot logo GitHub Copilot   OpenCode logo OpenCode   MiMo Code logo MiMo Code   Amp logo Amp   OpenClaude logo OpenClaude   Antigravity logo Antigravity   Pi logo Pi   oh-my-pi logo oh-my-pi   Hermes Agent logo Hermes Agent   Devin logo Devin   Goose logo Goose   Auggie logo Auggie   Autohand Code logo Autohand Code   Charm logo Charm   Cline logo Cline   Codebuff logo Codebuff   Command Code logo Command Code   Continue logo Continue   Droid logo Droid   Kilocode logo Kilocode   Kimi logo Kimi   Kiro logo Kiro   Mistral Vibe logo Mistral Vibe   Qwen Code logo Qwen Code   Rovo Dev logo Rovo Dev   + any CLI agent


Install

Desktop — macOS, Windows, Linux

Or via a package manager:

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install --cask stablyai/orca/orca

# Arch Linux (AUR) — or stably-orca-git to build from source
yay -S stably-orca-bin

Mobile Companion — iOS, Android

Pair with your desktop app to monitor and steer your agents from your phone.


Community & Support

  • Discord: Join the community on Discord.

  • Twitter / X: Follow @orca_build for updates and announcements.

  • WeChat: Scan to join the Orca community WeChat group 7.

    WeChat group 7 QR code for the Orca community
  • Feedback & Ideas: We ship fast. Missing something? Request a new feature.

  • Privacy: See the privacy & telemetry docs for what anonymous usage data Orca collects and how to opt out.

  • Show Support: Star this repo to follow along with our daily ships.


Developing

Want to contribute or run locally? See our CONTRIBUTING.md guide.

Orca contributors

GitHub star history chart for stablyai/orca

Signed Builds

Windows code signing sponored/provided by SignPath.io, certificate by SignPath Foundation.

License

Orca is free and open source under the MIT License.

S
Description
Orca is the ADE for working with a fleet of parallel agents. Run any coding agent with your own subscription. Available on desktop, mobile and remote runtime.
Readme MIT
2.4 GiB
Languages
TypeScript 96.1%
JavaScript 3.3%
Swift 0.2%
CSS 0.1%