Stop stashing — use a second worktree

You’re mid-feature, nothing compiles, and something urgent lands. The reflex is git stash — which works, until you forget what’s in the stack.

git worktree gives you a second working directory backed by the same repository. Two branches checked out at once, one clone on disk:

git worktree add ../myrepo-hotfix hotfix/login-500

That’s a real directory you can cd into, open in a second editor window, and run tests in — while your feature branch sits untouched exactly as you left it.

To start from a new branch instead of an existing one:

git worktree add -b hotfix/login-500 ../myrepo-hotfix origin/main

When you’re done:

git worktree list              # see everything currently checked out
git worktree remove ../myrepo-hotfix

Worth knowing

• Git won’t let you check out the same branch in two worktrees at once. That’s a feature — it’s what stops you fighting yourself.
• node_modules, .venv and other ignored build artefacts aren’t shared. Each worktree needs its own install.
• If you delete a worktree directory manually, git worktree prune cleans up the stale metadata.

The real unlock is parallelism: a long test suite can run in one worktree while you keep typing in the other.