Assign a task
One owner, a written scope and a Git worktree for the coding seat.
LOCAL AGENTS / SHARED REPO / HUMAN AUTHORITY
A team of coding agents.
One accountable loop.
drover is an MIT-licensed macOS toolkit for developers who run teams of coding agents in parallel in Herdr, with task dispatch, isolated Git worktrees and cross-harness review.
MIT licensed · macOS · Bring your own coding CLIs
Know the boundary. Drover is local orchestration, not a model, hosted IDE or security sandbox. Agents use your credentials and native permissions. Inspect the dry-run and configuration before enabling automation.
01 / THE OPERATING LOOP
Keep work moving.
Keep proof attached.
Build and test
The agent produces commits and executable evidence, not a status label.
Review across harnesses
Route the named change to a reviewer on a different coding harness.
Prove it landed
Apply the configured gate and verify the commit is on fetched main.
02 / FIELD NOTES, NOT PROMISES
The failures that
shaped the guardrails.
Historical reports from one operator’s fleet. Raw ledgers are not distributed; these are not independent benchmarks or promised improvements.
2026-09-07
44 minMedian dispatch gap
650 gaps; p90 285 minutes. Tasks took 10–20 minutes while the lead polled in eight-minute sleeps.
Read the dated lesson ↗2026-09-07
10 seats“Done” with no work
After credits ran out, ten agents reported done with no commit, report or error. Artifacts became the completion evidence.
Read the dated lesson ↗2026-09-18
$952The daily-meter error
A daily report counted lifetime session cost. The guard changed to per-message cost since local midnight.
Read the dated lesson ↗03 / CHOOSE YOUR WORKFLOW
drover vs alternatives
First-party descriptions read 2026-10-19. No performance ranking is implied.
| Project | What its own documentation describes |
|---|---|
| drover | A local Herdr fleet loop with dispatch, budget/ownership evidence, cross-harness review and gated publication. Operating model ↗ |
| herdr-synapse | A Herdr plugin with a shared team board, human-owned charter and idle-gated message delivery. First-party source ↗ |
| Claude Squad | A terminal app using tmux and Git worktrees to run coding agents on separate tasks and review changes. First-party source ↗ |
| Conductor | Its official docs describe parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces, with diff review and pull-request workflows. First-party source ↗ |
| Vibe Kanban | Its README describes kanban planning, agent workspaces and inline diff review; it also announces the project is sunsetting. First-party source ↗ |
| Claude Code agent teams | Anthropic documents a lead session coordinating Claude Code teammates through shared tasks and inter-agent messages. First-party source ↗ |
Conductor has no product README in its public release repo; official docs are cited. Claude Code agent teams have their own official feature documentation. Claim-by-claim source audit ↗
04 / QUESTIONS YOU ACTUALLY ASK
Run it with eyes open.
How do I run multiple Claude Code agents in parallel?
Install Herdr and authenticate your coding CLIs, inspect Drover’s install dry-run, configure a lead plus separate coder/reviewer seats in examples/config, then run fleet up. Each assigned coder works in its own Git worktree. Start with two seats and one task; inspect the result before enabling watcher automation.
How do I stop coding agents double-dispatching?
Choose one assignment authority. Drover projects native task ownership and the fetched main board before dispatching; fleet-claims-audit reports disagreement as UNKNOWN. Check the task and artifact evidence before releasing an owner. A stale pane or a done status alone is not proof of completion.
How do I set up cross-harness code review with Codex and Claude?
Configure coder and reviewer seats on different harnesses, for example a Codex coder and a Claude reviewer. Drover routes the named commits for execution of the build and affected tests. Keep the same-harness review guard enabled; a prose approval is not evidence that tests ran.
Is Drover a model, hosted IDE or security sandbox?
No. It is local orchestration around existing CLIs in Herdr. You supply their accounts and your project’s build/test commands. Worktrees separate branches, not operating-system permissions. Review automation and native CLI permission settings before running it.
Does Drover support Linux or Windows?
The full operating loop targets macOS: launchd, BSD utilities and APFS clone operations are assumed. Portable individual scripts do not establish support for the complete fleet on Linux or Windows.
START SMALL
Two seats. One task.
Inspect the first loop.
git clone https://github.com/andrebrov/drover.git cd drover ./install.sh --dry-run
Read the installation guide before installing or loading launch agents.
Installation guide ↗