Launch HN: Superset (YC P26) – IDE for the agents era

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Launch HN: Superset (YC P26) – IDE for the agents era

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by avipeltz

Hey HN, we’re Avi, Kiet, and Satya. We’re building Superset (https://github.com/superset-sh/superset), an open-source agentic IDE for running coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode etc in parallel.

Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWDHn7gUwfg

Try it: https://superset.sh/

We’re three engineers who’ve built and maintained large codebases, and we kept wanting to work on more than one thing at a time. Once CLI coding agents got good enough we found ourselves running several of them in parallel: triaging Github issues, adding a few ui features, reviewing PRs, researching a refactor, etc.

The funny part was that we and a lot of our friends had all hacked together similar scripts around git worktrees. Worktrees are a nice primitive for this because each agent can get an isolated copy of the repo, but the workflows around them can feel pretty messy, setting up/tearing down environments and managing dev servers.

We first posted here a few months ago when Superset was mostly an open-source terminal for managing git worktrees (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46368739). Since then, it has changed a lot based on feedback from people using it on real codebases, plus contributions from our open-source community. The product has grown into something closer to an IDE for managing agent work across many worktrees, repos, and machines.

The biggest thing we learned is that the hard part is not just “run more agents.” It is managing all the state around them: worktrees, ports, terminal sessions, environment setup, diffs, tasks, and PRs. Once you have five or ten agents running, the bottleneck often becomes remembering what each one is doing and actual human review. We added task / issue tracking so work can move from issue → agent → diff → PR → review without losing the context all in Superset. But there's a lot more work to improve this experience over time.

We also launched Remote Workspaces, currently in beta. The idea is that you can run coding agents on remote machines instead of using all the memory and CPU on your laptop, while still managing the work from the Superset desktop app.To support Remote workspaces, we isolated the core functionality of our Electron app into a headless Hono server such that it can be deployed into any workspaces and talk to any client (such as our desktop app, mobile, web, etc) and still provide the same interface that our desktop app has.

A lot of our next work is around making agent work easier to manage when you are not sitting at your main dev machine. We’re building more functionality into the Superset CLI, improving remote workspace flows, and working on Superset Mobile (coming soon) so you can check on agents, review progress, and steer work from your phone.

We’d love more feedback on Superset, especially if you are daily driving coding agents!

nullbio
221h
One thing I don't understand with all of these, is how they're handling different worktree infrastructure spin-up?
For example, if I have a webapp, I want each of the worktrees to spin up its own infrastructure, and be accessible on its own unique local url, so that I can see the changes locally for each worktree, or I can have agents automate visual checks using something like agent-browser.
Currently I use docker for my infrastructure, each service running in its own container. I have a script that has a ./app worktree create worktreename. That creates a worktree as "worktreename" and spins up all of my docker infrastructure with prefixes for things like "WORKTREENAME", and I can access all my urls at worktreename.myapp.test (or just myapp.test for the main worktree).
This is working fine for now, but it'd be cool if one of these apps was compatible with this concept so I could move over to that.
1. dbbk
  113h
  You just enter a setup script that it runs on worktree creation
  1. igor47
    01h
    "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I always automate my repo setup, usually with mise tasks, but there's often assumptions baked in, eg around which ports the app will listen on. It's also still hard to get the agents to use "mise run test" instead of invoking pytest directly. This sounds harder to deal with when you have multiple copies of the test or dev stack running together on the same machine.
antman
06h
Nice if didnt have the same name with an Apache project https://superset.apache.org/
tacone
01d
I was looking exactly for something like that. I tried installing the Linux version and it runs but:
1. it's behind a login wall | 2. tries to download its own OpenCode instead of using the one installed on my machine
I also tried to create a new workspace. It asked what I want to do. I tried with "create user accounts", and it proceeded to create the git worktree (without asking for its name) and sent that prompt straight to OpenCode without allowing me to choose the LLM model.
I plaud the effort - I really do - but it doesn't really seems a great experience for now.
hmokiguess
11d
That still is not it for me, for now iTerm2 tabs / tmux is plenty. This, or tools like Warp, feel so heavy for me and I get overwhelmed.
The Codex/Antigravity desktop app alternate route feels more like the direction I can buy into it, but I still feel like there's room for another novel UX not yet done.
Perhaps the biggest thing I feel like I wish existed is a "Scratchpad" mode inside a session, Claude recently came up with `/btw` and it's been really useful. Same with `!` for terminal commands within session.
Nested thinking spaces within a chat window UX is a very tricky thing to reason about.
1. hoakiet98
  01d
frenchie4111
61d
Wow - this looks like a fork of my project https://github.com/frenchie4111/harness
It's crazy to see how we have independently landed in the same place
Good luck to your project! Excited to see how our projects differ in the future
1. servercobra
  11d
  Amazing, this is exactly what I've been looking for a while now, especially the remote dev box part. I'll give it a try, thank you!
micro23xd
91d
I've been using this for the past few months, and I love it! It's built exactly around my workflow with many worktrees in various repos open at the same time, sometimes with different agents working side-by-side. Before Superset I just used terminal tabs but simply couldn't manage more than like 20 terminal tabs without losing track, so i coudn't scale further. Now i'm running probably 40-50 agent sessions over several repos simultaneously without any issues and losing track! Keep up the good work guys!
1. kylecazar
  21d
survirtual
11d
Nice. In the right track. I made something similar, but focused on local agents, but we both have issue tracking for managing multiple project and agents in parallel. It works, I think people will be surprised when they start using systems like this.
It is very different from current editors and the direction they are going in. In a way, it undermines the direction they are going. Current editors aim to make engineers 10x or 100x. These editors aim at a different target than the engineers. I will leave it to the imagination on who.
1. avipeltz • OP
  01d
whinvik
115h
I always feel like I want to use something like this, but then realize my NeoVim setup + tmux + Ghostty is good enough and I am not ready to learn a whole another system for modest gains.
The friction I have currently is obviously things like port forwarding, in app browser etc.
I keep thinking to try out cmux but haven't gotten around to it.
1. avipeltz • OP
  06h
  makes sense, well if you ever want to dabble, let us know how you like it :)
BrandiATMuhkuh
013h
I've been using Superset as my daily driver for about 2 months and I'm loving it.
i have created a simple setup script that reserves a couple of ports per workspace/worktree. with that, each ticket/workspace can starts it's own webserver. Allowing me to work on multiple things in parallel. that also allows me to use Claude+Chrome MCP to e2e test each implementation in parallel.
Besides my own repo I also have a couple open source repos open. so I can quickly ask Claude questions about it instead of looking at the docs, which are usually outdated.
All in all, I usually have ~5 workspace/tickets/agents running at the same time. And one as Q&A agents per OSS repo
collin128
11d
Just switched from Conductor to Superset and I'm a big fan. I really didn't like the extra stuff conductor added to the UX (the text rendering always drove me nuts).
So far so good with Superset - even as a non-engineer builder.
1. avipeltz • OP
  022h
  Glad to hear it! :) we'll keep shipping and making improvements
mashlol
41d
Why Mac only?
Also - one issue I've seen with other tools doing worktree stuff is they don't deal with merge conflicts automatically. IMO the agents should just automatically resolve conflicts & rebase on their own, is that a thing here?
1. avipeltz • OP
  06h
  We technically have a linux build, but dont maintain it as well as mac. We are built on electron so eventually we want to more heavily support linux and windows but we dont currently have anyone on the team that daily drives linux and windows the maintenance overhead is a bit too high. Once we do have someone on the team driving linux/windows we'll have broader publicized support for all platforms.
  And on the worktree note, I find when working in a worktree the agent has a much easier time solving merge conflicts and as the number of feature branches scale and it just makes it so i dont have to worry about conflicts while working on a feature.
gchamonlive
31d
Personally, IDE for the agent era is just Linux.
Kitty with oh-my-zsh, lazyvim and an agent. The entire thing is an ide. If I need to refactor, query data and interact with the system I just use native tools like rg+fastmod, bash, awk, jq... Either writing myself of asking an agent to do the heavy lifting.
Linux in the agent era is a breeze to operate and reason about, so the whole thing becomes a single development environment that's really light on resources and effective.
1. abirch
  11d
straydusk
11d
What's the difference between you and emdash and conductor and t3
1. hoakiet98
  01d
  Conductor and t3 - We don't build on top of the SDKs and don't plan to. As a terminal first we give you the flexibility to work between the different CLI agents CC, Opencode, Codex, etc. to get the latest features.
  Emdash more similar but we're planning on investing more into allowing you to script and automate the app + agents more with our CLI.
roggenbuck
123h
Loving superset! Congrats on the launch! Excited to try remote workspaces so I don’t have to leave my computer open while I have autoresearch running.
1. avipeltz • OP
  022h
  Thanks! glad to hear it :)
SeriousM
11d
Sadly there are so few solutions, if even one, that is trying to offer a real remote agent interaction. That's why I've build my own. No IDE per se rather than a discord bridge, with all interaction possibilities that makes sense and a way for my agent to quickly send me files or host mockups. My usecase is to build tools, reports, do research, mock up ideas and build prototypes. That's why I don't need to see the code that was written.
1. avipeltz • OP
  01d
  hmm well we do have a slack integration and forsee a discord integration in the future so maybe we'll end up getting there for you :)
hermanschaaf
91d
At first glance, it looks similar to Conductor (https://www.conductor.build/). It seems like a lot of these tools are converging on the same general ideas.
Could you share a comparison with the other tools out there?
1. motoboi
  01d
  For me the greatest difference is that superset is terminal-centric while conductor is chat-centric.
  GUIs slow you down, in my opinion. But having the nice visual diff is something we can't really do well in TUIs, so very welcome.
  So, superset, for me (been using for quite some time now) is basically to organize my agent and terminal sessions per task and project.
  I can switch context much easier and can also resume working on something days later, with all my tabs nicely available and separated.
  This was consuming me before, a dozen or more tabs and windows in my computer that I don't really remember to which task each belongs to.
vmsp
41d
Is anyone actually using agent swarms for anything real?
1. Tooster
  11d
  Yeah, how many agents can you people even run at once and how much does it cost you? In company we used the monthly token quota and nowadays it's basically unusable with claude opus 4.6 on high reasoning. You can basically burn through 100% usage through a single day. How does it even scale for you with N agents and which magical plans or models do you use, where tools like this are even viable?
ssalka
21d
How do you guys plan to sustain the business, given that your product here is open source & already has many competitors doing similar things?
1. saddlepaddle
  01d
  So far we've been growing pretty healthily all things considered!
  I think one thing to remember is that the other side of us having dozens of competitors is that if the space couldn't sustain more than 1-2 parallel agent companies, a lot fewer of us would exist. We also will have a lot of time to continue creating value for our customers in the future in new ways :)
ddxv
21d
I'd love a comparison to what's already out there. Don't vscode, antigravity, cursor etc all have agents too?
1. xnx
  11d
  Yes. Antigravity switched to primarily be an agent management tool (the previous version of the product became Antigravity IDE). Additionally, most advanced tools automatically spawn subagents.
dbbk
31d
Sorry if I'm missing something but is there a way to create a new Claude workspace that has dangerously-skip-permissions but starts in Plan mode? There's no mode selector in the new workspace modal
1. davecyen
  21d
  Yeah I have --dangerously-skip-permissions configured as a preset for Claude in Superset, but you can add more commands too. Just go to Settings > Terminal
toddmorey
11d
I agree with the hard part being managing state, especially environments and ports. I've never used lsof so much in my life.
Question on Remote Workspace: Can the remote machine port forward so I can use a browser to see / test current state of the app on the remote machine?
1. saddlepaddle
  01d
  On the docket! Right now the main thing we have enabled is the file system + terminals + ai agents through remote workspaces, but yes dev environments is definitely on the agenda :)
cpan22
21d
I switched over to Superset from Conductor a few months ago and haven't looked back - it's really nice to be able to use the native Codex/Claude Code TUIs without any of the bloat
Can't wait to see what else you guys cook up!
1. hoakiet98
  01d
  That’s awesome to hear!
  Definitely some exciting stuff coming with better automations, mobile and remote workspaces
Geee
11d
What are you doing with multiple agents, i.e. how do you have so much work to do? I can't come up with new ideas faster than the dude is coding.
1. hoakiet98
  01d
  there's a lot of cases that works for me with multiple, spiking or triaging issues generally take long so i usually can kick off a few different workspaces for to check back in after a while. what i don't want to do is wait around for minutes while an agent is coding or exploring.
pplonski86
11d
is it terminal on steroids some kind of? so you can manage mutiple coding agents? how many coding agents you can manage in parallel that it is still comfortable to work and code changes are meaningful
1. hoakiet98
  01d
  yes, we surface agent states automatically so you can see what's running or needs attention across the different workspaces. there's a set of tasks where having 5-6 running in parallel is still productive for me such as running spikes and fixing small issue.
  As we're investing more into integration test and self-validating for the agents we're able to increase the number without sacrificing quality.
jerrygenser
11d
This uses separate git worktrees. If we have a local dev setup involving multiple docker services, is there a recommended solution for managing those envs? I didn't see.
1. saddlepaddle
  01d
  We have a concept of setup and teardown scripts if you're interested in checking them out! Together with worktrees, you can make it pretty automatic to making copies of your repo: https://docs.superset.sh/setup-teardown-scripts
  Ours are a bit complex but here's an example: https://github.com/superset-sh/superset/tree/main/.superset
darweenist
11d
Why do folks choose you guys over Conductor?
1. hoakiet98
  01d
  biggest thing is flexibility on what harness you use. we don't build on the claude code /codex sdk. instead, we just let you bring whatever CLI agents you prefer and just optimize the terminal experience for using CLI agents (track running / needs attention state, set up worktrees, split pane, etc)
ChicagoDave
61d
Still misses entirely the way software is constructed. These whack-a-mole tools are pointless.
1. avipeltz • OP
  21d
  definitely understand the perspective. I feel like theres some dev work that completely requires me to be single threaded and just think hard, but there other modes where i can jump into whack-a-mole mode and try to work on a bunch of github issues in parallel, or sentry issues, or little ui bugs and the thinking goes more into reviewing plans and prs and i dont have to be as attentive to each individual session
eikenberry
21d
Why support each agent individually instead of using ACP and get much better agent coverage?
1. avipeltz • OP
  01d
  we're actually currently evaluating integrating acp for our chat, but when you start digging a bit deeper its not a complete silver bullet.
brod_ie
11d
Binding the shell <-> local git clone automatically feels like the future. Great work.
1. avipeltz • OP
  01d
  thanks! give it a try :) https://github.com/superset-sh/superset
yawnxyz
11d
can you make Superset work on folders that aren't git repositories?
1. avipeltz • OP
  01d
  yes, we do support the ability to open a folder and have superset initialize it as a git project too. Would that work for your usecase?
bicepjai
21d
I like this app, but 40 year old me says I will buy it for onetime payment rather than 20 dollars monthly. Great app
1. bicepjai
  05h
  wow they updated their software when a claude code terminal session was alive. Felt like magic. Thanks folks. please give an option to pay one time :)
desireco42
11d
I used Superset for quite a while until a month ago. There were some annoying issues, with freezing and terminal not being rendered how it should be. And they did repeated fixes that didn't really solve it. Since I had work to do I moved on.
I installed Zellij on my server where most of work is happening and local machine and this works well for me. There are other issues I have now, but overall flow is fairly natural to what I am doing.
I liked that they did integrate a lot of agent workflow in Superset but my experience was that it would just take too many resources and especially with glitches, it wasn't worth it continuing. I had a period where i enjoyed working in it. It is vibe coded electron app, 2GB! is too much for this kind of app.
I just updated to their new version... it supposedly imported my projects but I can't find anything... so... I guess this is it.
1. hoakiet98
  01d
jimmydoe
11d
zed , orca , /.+mux.*/ , ...
they all look incredibly / increasingly the same?
1. avipeltz • OP
  01d
  yeah i think theres a lot of ux conventions that are starting to get figured out, but we do want to be different. At least right now most dont well support remote workspace, issue tracking, or review. I bet most of the current ux patterns will look very different in a year
tdi
31d
No linear integration in free version and taxing it 20$/m is a bit steep.
1. saddlepaddle
  21d
  That's fair! We do have more paid features (a slack integration, remote workspaces etc.) but yeah we haven't found the best balance for which tier to put each in for sure.
FailMore
01d
It's nice to see people building things, but honestly I found the demo video a bit disappointing. A bit too slow, a bit too choppy, a bit hand wavy. It didn't make me grasp why I needed this in my life.
drcongo
31d
The FAQ says "Superset has a free tier. The source code is available on GitHub under Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2), so you can inspect and self-host it subject to the license terms." - what is self hosting in this context, isn't it a desktop app? Is this why it wants me to sign into something? What exactly am I signing in to?
1. saddlepaddle
  21d
  So we also ship a cloud service along with Superset, which enables our Linear integration, Slack integration, and our multiplayer capabilities / remote workspaces.
  When you sign in, you're signing into our cloud service!
yannoninator
11d
How does this compare to Cursor?
What happens if Cursor makes the exact same features as your product?
1. saddlepaddle
  01d
  Actually Cursor is starting to converge with us as we speak! You can look at their new agents mode (which is now their default for new users) as an example.
  For what happens, in our heads the end goal is building a software factory where dozens to hundreds of agents are always running - something that nobody has nailed the experience for yet. Until that's a solved problem I hope we have room to grow and build!
dested
11d
Windddddddoooowwwwwssssss
1. avipeltz • OP
  01d
  sooooooooooooooon! nobody on the team daily drives windows yet so until we have an engineer on the team driving windows we probably wont be able to properly support it.
bobchadwick
21d
I thought this was somehow related to Apache Superset.
https://superset.apache.org/
1. saddlepaddle
  01d
  Ah actually we're unaffiliated!
xnx
11d
Confusing name. Superset is already an established analytics tool.
1. hoakiet98
  01d
  yes, bad choice on my part. the origin was i was planning for it to be a superset of all your dev tools, not thinking about apache superset at all since it was a different domain
joemorrison607
09h
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aplomb1026
01d
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Phionyx
020h
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sanjay_ni
01d
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sebmellen
11d
> Just realized that I have done all my work in @superset_sh since Dec 26.
Just FYI the first quote on your site references a date we haven’t reached yet!
1. hoakiet98
  01d
  I think Abhi meant Dec 26, 2025
othmarodev
01d
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jennyviguet
01d
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offercc
022h
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indianwashlet
015h
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bitwize
21d
How many "IDEs for the agentic era" do we need?
1. neals
  01d
  As many as we can new idea's from and figure out how to do this more efficiently. It's ok to stick with vim, of course!
guhcampos
31d
We live in this era when folks can vibecode entire startups without ever making a simple Google Search.
https://github.com/apache/superset
1. dang
  01d
  "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting."
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html