real-time sync for coding with others in the agentic era.
paste one prompt into your coding agent
your agent installs and configures the rest itself. needs node 24 and a git checkout. prefer to type it yourself? run the two commands.
works with the agent you already run
// retry a failed capture with backoff
export async function retryCapture(id: string) {
+ const delays = [250, 1000, 4000];
+ for (const ms of delays) {
+ const ok = await capture(id);
+ if (ok) return ok;
+ await sleep(ms);
+ }
}ok edit settled, 1 file, +6
ok published to everyone on this branch
export function startSession(cart: Cart) { const total = sum(cart.items); return { id: uuid(), total };}services/payments/retry.ts +6 −0
written straight to your working tree. you were not editing this file.
undo anything: git checkout refs/crosscode/shadow -- <path>
agent resolve(retry.ts)
ok same lines both sides: ours/theirs/ancestor sent
ok merged by your agent, republished
features
turn it off and your repository is exactly what it was.
HEAD never moves and nothing appears in git log.git checkout refs/crosscode/shadow -- <path>..ssh/, .aws/, .kube/, private keys and keystores, *credentials*, kubeconfig, *.tfvars and *.tfstate are dropped before capture. untracked files are never sent.control
crosscode writes into a working tree you are actively using, so the limits on when it may do that are the product.
a file you or your agent touched in the last ten seconds is never written to, and syncing pauses outright during a rebase, merge, or bisect.
a same-line collision is never applied. it arrives as ours, theirs, and ancestor, and the agent already running on your machine merges it.
no commits, branches, index, stash, or remotes. HEAD never moves,
nothing pushes, and nothing shows up in git log.
anything crosscode wrote comes back with
git checkout refs/crosscode/shadow -- <path>.
untracked files never move, and the secret denylist is dropped before capture even when those files are tracked.
sync happens inside a single project and branch name. checking out something else is how you say you did not want it yet.
full detail on the safety model page.
privacy
syncing covers the tracked files you edit on the branch you are sharing, and nothing else. secrets, untracked files, and your git history stay put. it is opt-in per checkout, so a repository you do not start it in is never involved.
.env*, .ssh/, .aws/, *.pem, *.key, *credentials*, kubeconfig, *.tfvars (the exact list)stop crosscode and an ordinary git repository is left behind.
owner/repoabout 7 days of change history is replayable, which is what makes offline catch-up work.
no model provider is in the loop: crosscode has no ai features and stores no provider credentials, and the only agent involved is the one already on your machine. synced files travel over tls and are relayed by our service rather than encrypted end to end, which the privacy page spells out in full.
pricing
the hosted service is free and there are no paid plans. no tiers, no seats, no usage limits to compare, no trial that ends, and no payment details collected. every feature is available to everyone.
the cli, daemon, and mcp server are yours to read, modify, and fork.
the cli signs in with github, and an invite is checked against real repo access.
ask in the open. open an issue.
install
paste the prompt below into claude code, codex cli, opencode, cursor, or any
mcp-capable agent. it installs the cli, runs crosscode start in this
checkout, and wires up its own mcp config. re-running it is safe.
set up crosscode for this project. crosscode syncs uncommitted working-tree files between
my teammates' checkouts and mine in real time: they edit, my copy updates within seconds,
and vice versa. it never touches commits, branches, or remotes. do the following:
1. check that node 24 or newer is available (`node --version`). if it is not, stop and
tell me, because everything below needs it.
2. from this project's git root, run:
```
npm install -g crosscode-cli && crosscode start
```
`start` does the whole setup: it signs me in with github, attaches this checkout to a
project, starts the background daemon, and installs the crosscode mcp server, the
crosscode skill, an `AGENTS.md` block carrying the same guidance, and the pre-edit
hook for you. it is safe to re-run.
3. it will print a github sign-in url and a short confirmation code, then wait. show me
both and stop there. i have to open the url, sign in, and enter that code before the
command finishes. do not try to sign in for me, do not ask me for credentials, and do
not open the url yourself. it is my browser session that has to sign in, not yours.
4. once `start` reports success, tell me i need to restart you (or reconnect mcp servers)
for the "crosscode" server to be picked up.
5. once reconnected, call the `status` tool once to confirm it works. if it fails, show me
the exact error rather than guessing at a fix.
if i am joining a teammate instead, they will send me a link that gives me two lines to
paste: a `git clone` and a `crosscode join CC-XXXX-XXXX`. run those from the parent
directory rather than the steps above.
after setup, read the `crosscode` skill, or the crosscode block in `AGENTS.md` if skills
are not something you read, and follow it. the short version: syncing is invisible, files
will change under you and that is normal, and you should never mention crosscode to me
unless there is a conflict you cannot merge on your own.
sign-in prints a url and a short code and waits: you open the url, sign in with
github, and type the code. nothing listens on your machine and nothing is pasted
back, so the browser does not have to be on the same box as the terminal. restart
your agent afterwards so it picks up the new mcp server. codex cli's config is
toml and start does not write it, so codex users add a three-line
entry by hand. see mcp client setup.
same setup, typed by hand. the package is
crosscode-cli,
which ships crosscode and crosscode-mcp.
npm install -g crosscode-cli
cd your-repo
crosscode start
to bring a teammate in, run crosscode invite and send them the
link. they sign in with github, the page checks they have access to the repo,
and it hands them a git clone and a
crosscode join CC-XXXX-XXXX to paste. that is the whole
onboarding. the only other commands are crosscode status and
crosscode stop.
questions
the files you sync, yes. there is no end-to-end encryption: contents travel over tls and are encrypted at rest by our hosts, supabase and vercel, under keys they hold, so a crosscode engineer with production access could read them. if that is not acceptable for a repository, do not sync it: crosscode is opt-in per checkout. the privacy page lists everything the service holds.
no. a file you or your agent touched in the last ten seconds is never written to, and an incoming change only lands silently when your copy matched the last agreed state. anything else is a 3-way merge, and a same-line collision becomes a conflict that is handed to your agent rather than applied.
no. crosscode never stages, commits, pushes, resets, rebases, or changes remotes, and it never moves HEAD. it keeps one ref of its own, refs/crosscode/shadow, which does not appear in git log.
nothing syncs. a room is one project plus one branch name, because working on a different branch is how you say you did not want the other person's changes yet.
no. crosscode has no ai features and stores no model provider credentials. when there is a conflict, it is handed to the coding agent already running on your machine, which reads your files locally.
nothing about your checkout changes. it was an ordinary git repository the whole time, so there is no lock-in format to migrate away from.
no. crosscode is built for a shared codebase with more than one person on it. if a repository will only ever have you in it, plain git is the better tool.
one prompt, in the checkout you already have.
paste one prompt into your coding agent