This is the first post in the series I listed in Orbit needs Orbit. It covers what Orbit is, why I started it, and how to get it running.
What Orbit is
Orbit is a control room for the agents that write your code. It runs the CLI you already use (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cline or Antigravity) and puts it to work on several tasks at once.
- Parallel tasks, each in its own worktree and its own branch.
- Gates you set, points where the task stops. Nothing reaches your branch until you sign off.
- A report for every run, with its diff and a warning when a file that almost always changes together with another one stayed the same this time.
- A supervisor, a second agent that checks every finished run against what was asked.
- Autopilot, which works through the pending tasks without you touching it, and stops when one needs a person.
- It learns how each repository is worked, and turns that into rules that reach the agent's prompt.
- Flows you write yourself: the list of phases a task goes through, each with its own CLI and model. Five ship built in.
- Connections to what you already use: Telegram, issues from Linear, Jira, GitHub and GitLab, and a view in the browser.
Orbit was born because the agents produced more than I could review
It happened to me on several projects, and while building Orbit itself there were days with 18 pull requests. By the fifth review of the day I was approving on the strength of the tests passing.
I started Orbit to keep several tasks running without watching each one in the terminal, and to know what each one did when I come back.
It installs with one line and opens with another
curl -fsSL https://getorbit.sh/install | bash
There are builds for macOS and Linux. The script checks the sha256 of what it downloads and puts the binary in ~/.local/bin.
Then you run orbit. The first time, it opens a screen called Integrations with what it found on your machine: your CLIs, your repositories and the optional keys (Linear, GitHub, Jira, Telegram). You move to a row, press enter and it's set up. esc takes you to the board, where the tasks live.
Orbit learns how each repository is worked
On the same screen, each folder of code has a Learn option on its row. Orbit reads how each project is built and tested, what its CI refuses and what its history says, and asks your CLI to pull the conventions out of a sample of files.
Rules come out of that. Each one keeps where it came from and the line of code where it shows, and it reaches the prompt before the agent starts working. When a rule carries a command, it works as a gate, and the task doesn't get through while that command fails.
The rules wait for your approval in the Brain, the screen you open with K from the board, grouped by how much they matter:
- Critical: breaking them breaks something or costs money, like a CI gate or a security rule.
- Important: how the people on that repository work, which an agent wouldn't guess from reading the code.
- Basic: what the code shows anyone who reads it, like where the tests live.
Every time you run Learn again, Orbit compares each rule with the code it came from. If someone removed a CI step, the rule that came from that step stops applying and goes back to waiting for your answer.
The first task is created with N and run with n
On the board, N opens a form with the title, what has to be done, the repository and the flow, and n on the new row starts it.
If you don't pick a flow, it runs task. Sonnet implements and the task stops at a gate. You look at what it did, and once you sign off, Opus reviews it.
Both phases use Claude. If you work with another CLI, you switch it on each phase.
Every feature has its own video on getorbit.sh
That's enough to get started. On getorbit.sh there's a video for each feature, from autopilot to the supervisor, plus the full documentation.
I'm looking for people who want to build Orbit with me
Orbit is at v0.3. I use it every day, and so far I'm the only one who has tried it. I'm looking for people who want to join the project, whether that's trying it on their machine, proposing flows or getting their hands into the code.
If it catches your interest, write to me at elio@getorbit.sh and I'll tell you where to start.