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Use Styx alongside your editor

Keep working in VS Code, Cursor, Zed or a JetBrains IDE while agents work on their own branches, and move between the two in one click.

Styx doesn't ask you to give up your editor. Agents work in their own copies of the repo, so you can keep coding in your usual editor while they run, open any task's files there in one click, and use Styx's built-in editor and terminal for quick looks and small fixes.

Connect your editor

The first step of onboarding, Your editor, lists the editors Styx found on this machine: VS Code (and Insiders), Cursor, Windsurf, Zed, JetBrains IDEs (WebStorm, IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, GoLand, Rider and the rest) and Neovim. Tick the one you use and it is marked Fallback · Open in: that's where Open in sends you from then on.

Under the list are five options. Styx only reads your editor's files; nothing in your editor changes.

  • Import recent folders (feeds next step): your editor's recent projects become suggestions on the next step, Your projects. Styx reads them from VS Code, Cursor and Windsurf (recent folders and workspaces), from JetBrains IDEs (recent projects) and from Neovim (the git repos holding your recently opened files). Zed's history isn't read.
  • Also look where Claude Code and Codex have worked: adds the folders those agents' own session history mentions.
  • Import keybindings: reads keybindings.json from VS Code, Cursor or Windsurf.
  • Import theme & font: reads the colour theme and editor font from VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf or Zed.
  • Install "Open in Styx" command: see below.

Skipped the step, or changed editors? Pick a different one under Settings › Editor › Fallback editor. To add more projects from your editor's recents later, open the command palette (⌘K (CtrlK on Windows and Linux)) and choose Add from recent projects….

Your checkout stays yours

Every task runs in a git worktree: a separate folder with its own branch, next to your project rather than inside it. For a project at ~/code/shop, a Claude task's folder is ~/code/.styx/worktrees/shop/agent-claude-1, on the branch agent/claude-1.

So the folder you have open in your editor is never touched while agents work. They don't switch your branch, write to your files or leave half-finished edits in your working tree. You can keep coding on your own branch while three agents work on theirs.

There is one point where Styx does use your folder: landing. Land merges a task's branch into main in the project folder you added to Styx, so that folder has to be on main with nothing uncommitted at that moment. If it isn't, Land says so and does nothing. Commit or stash your own work first, or work on your own branch in a separate worktree. See Land, publish and deploy.

Open a task's files in your editor

  1. Pick the task in the project nav.
  2. Open the Code tab. The file tree shows the task's folder, with changed files marked.
  3. Click Open in. The button at the foot of the file tree is named after your editor (Open in VS Code, Open in Cursor, and so on). It opens the task's folder in your editor, or just the open file if one is open in the Code tab.

Your editor now has the agent's branch open in its own window, separate from your main checkout, and you can read, run or change anything there. Edits you make in a task's folder show up on its Changes tab under Changes not tied to a turn, so they're never confused with the agent's work, and they land with the task.

Two habits keep this smooth. Avoid editing a file while the agent is mid-turn on it; wait for the turn to finish, or tell the agent what you changed. And let Styx manage the task's branch: commit there if you like, but don't switch branches or rebase in a task's folder, because Styx keeps it in step with main for you.

On the Lanes page (Lanes and branches in the project nav), Open on the row for your main folder opens it in your editor too.

Use the built-in Code tab and terminal

For a quick look or a one-line fix, you don't need to leave Styx:

  • Code is an embedded Monaco editor, the editor inside VS Code, on the selected task's folder. Edits save on their own as you type. Binary files and files over 1 MB open read-only. Turn on Settings › Editor › Track agent edits (diff review) to see the agent's changes highlighted in the editor as it makes them.
  • Terminal is a shell already in the task's folder, on its branch. Run the tests, check git log, or try the agent's change by hand.

The other tabs cover the rest of a task: Changes for reviewing what it did turn by turn, Preview for the running app. See Working with an agent.

Open a folder in Styx from your terminal

If you ticked Install "Open in Styx" command during onboarding, run this in any project folder:

styx .

Styx comes to the front and asks Add this folder as a Styx project? before adding it. On macOS the command goes in /usr/local/bin, or ~/.local/bin if that isn't writable (add it to your PATH if it isn't there already). On Windows it goes in your user PATH (open a new terminal to pick it up), and you also get Open in Styx when you right-click a folder in Explorer.