Review PRs without stashing, with git worktree

You’re mid-feature, server running, uncommitted changes everywhere. A teammate opens a pull request you want to run locally. Or you just wrote tests for your feature and want to run them on main. Either way, switching context is a pain.

You probably stash your work, check out the other branch, run things, then check out your branch and unstash. Or worse, clone the repo again just to avoid committing half-finished work.

There is a better way: git worktree.

Review a PR without stashing

Say you’re in myproject/ on your feature branch (dirty or not). Fetch and create a new worktree for the branch you want to review:

git fetch
# 'other-branch' being the PR branch name
git worktree add ../myproject-other-branch origin/other-branch 

Now ../myproject-other-branch is a clean checkout of that PR. You can cd into it, run tests, open it in your editor, or boot the app. Your main workspace is untouched.

When you’re done, simply run:

git worktree remove ../myproject-other-branch

Gone. No stashes, no half-merged leftovers, and assuming you’ve opened the other branch in a new editor instance, you even have your open tabs unchanged.

If you forget and delete the folder manually, git worktree prune cleans up references.

Keep main around

Same idea when you just want to peek at main:

git worktree add ../myproject-main main

Now you’ll have your current, uncommitted, work available in myproject, and a clean checkout of main in ../myproject-main.

Run tests, compare behavior, or copy configs without leaving your context.

Commands you will use

Once you get the hang of it, there are only a few commands to remember:

• List active worktrees: git worktree list
• Remove a worktree: git worktree remove <path>
• Clean up after manual deletes: git worktree prune

Things to keep in mind

A branch can be checked out in only one worktree at a time. If you need the same code in two places, check out a different branch or use a detached HEAD.

Each worktree keeps its own working files like node_modules, builds, and caches. The repository data like commits, branches, tags and stashes, is shared across them all.

In practice this gives you room to review a PR without touching your current work, jump between branches quickly, run tests across branches, and fix something on main without killing your flow. It is also a safe place to experiment in a clean folder when you need one.

Final words

Once you start reviewing PRs this way, you’re not going back. No more stash dance. No more “I’ll just clone it again.” git worktree is a simple way to multitask in Git without breaking your flow.