Show HN: Bise – a multi-agent harness, made for humans
7 hours ago
- Agent fatigue is a problem from juggling sessions, repeated prompts, and lost context, which Bise aims to solve.
- Bise introduces a team lead agent called 'main' that splits goals into jobs, runs other agents, restarts failed ones, and keeps going.
- Agents share folders and use worktrees for isolated copies, cleaning up automatically after tasks.
- Main stays responsive, answers questions, and only surfaces real decisions to the user.
- Agents can communicate with each other, sharing and handing off tasks quietly.
- Bise supports MCP servers for integrating tools like GitHub, Linear, Sentry, Slack, docs, and databases without overloading context.
- Plugins (skills, MCP servers, hooks) load from ~/.agents/plugins or the repo, including Vibe plugins.
- In repos with pull requests, each change gets its own branch and PR, and the panel shows their status.
- Bise starts agents only when needed, keeping token usage efficient.
- Users can paste screenshots, use voice input, and select chat history lines as quotes.
- Each agent can use different models, and a real shell is available with Ctrl+`.
- Work persists across updates and restarts; agents resume without loss.
- Agent communication is proven correct using the Bend language.
- Runs on macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Linux soon, Windows later; requires git and an API key from providers like Anthropic, OpenAI, or Mistral.
- Bise can import from Claude Code, bringing over key, model, skills, and MCP servers.
- Commands include bise update, bise doctor, and bise uninstall.
- Bise works with existing models, MCP servers, and skills, but changes workflow to use a team lead instead of juggling sessions.
- Agents coordinate by informing each other of touches and use worktrees only when needed.
- By default, commands run without asking (yolo mode); Shift+Tab switches to auto mode for safe commands and asks for risky ones in a macOS sandbox.
- Main keeps the plan and reports, not the code, so a single thread can scale to millions of lines of code.
- Context is compacted automatically to prevent overflow, preserving trajectory.
- No external memory system needed; compaction and full history access handle it.
- Unlimited agents; real limits are tokens, budget, and provider.
- Easy to learn: four words: you, main, agents, inbox.
- Open source under Apache-2.0.
- Bise was built by Gabriel Vergnaud to reclaim flow and ship like a team of a hundred, and it's indie with support for issues.
- Future plans include a GUI version with sidebar and notifications, based on user interest.