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Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

oak.space

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Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#51

Post by dang »

zdgeier wrote: post #14
sublinear wrote: post #8

Lots of self-promotion, but no concrete comparisons where this tool does a better job than git. The only thing to go on is this single sentence: "With virtual mounts, agents locally and in the cloud no longer need a full copy of a repo to get working." > For the first 100 users that subscribe to a paid plan I will send you a personalized e-ink display I don't understand anyone who feels incentivized by this. Brogramm…

Check out the homepage! https://oak.space might have what you're looking for. I can answer any questions you have here as well.

Since this project hasn't appeared on HN before and is obviously of interest to people, I've taken the liberty of turning your post into a Show HN (which is the convention for sharing your work on Hacker News - https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html). I used the text from your blog post that explains what the project actually is - this is the bit we need to lead with, to stanch all the "I can't tell what this is" comments.

I hope this is ok! If you prefer different text at the top, let us know at hn@ycombinator.com.

Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#52

Post by dang »

ks2048 wrote: post #21

I would recommend just linking to a few sentences that say how Oak is different than Git, rather than a personal backstory. ( https://oak.space/docs ) My initial reaction is if this is not something than could be built on top of Git, rather than replacing it. Describe the data model - what is a "commit", what is a "branch" ..., if the same as git, then why not reuse.

Since many commenters had a variant of this response, I've turned the post into a Show HN above (more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48633408).

(The submitted title was "Git is forever. I'm building Oak anyways." and the submitted URL was https://oak.space/blog.)

Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#53

Post by zdgeier »

agalamli wrote: post #49

seems like an interesting idea. the only friction would be to get people to use it instead of git, however i believe it will happen slowly, more people trying it and recommending it to others.

Totally agree. This is going to be the hardest dev tool to get people to switch, but we're trying! I think there's going to be many more players in this space in the next year or so. It'll be interesting to see what shakes out.

Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#54

Post by tlb »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #40
tlb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

git actually does this. `git diff --find-copies`

If I run blame on the new file the will I see the commits made by the original writers? Will it find the same code if it was written independently? It’s not about find copies it about recording changes to a code base as an artifact and not to files. The closest git has is limited rename support.

Yes, if you run `git blame -C`.

Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#55

Post by zdgeier »

kjuulh wrote: post #50

I've built my own workflow for using agents on git, as i now often have to do changes across repositories, or in the same repository for different tasks. I could use worktrees, but I'd rather invert it, give agents the ability to have a workspace, that they pull repositories into, create branches as they want, commit on main it doesn't matter. the agents don't bother each other, and when i finally have to merge, conf…

Looks awesome!

Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#56

Post by zdgeier »

dang wrote: post #52
ks2048 wrote: post #21

I would recommend just linking to a few sentences that say how Oak is different than Git, rather than a personal backstory. ( https://oak.space/docs ) My initial reaction is if this is not something than could be built on top of Git, rather than replacing it. Describe the data model - what is a "commit", what is a "branch" ..., if the same as git, then why not reuse.

Since many commenters had a variant of this response, I've turned the post into a Show HN above (more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48633408 ). (The submitted title was "Git is forever. I'm building Oak anyways." and the submitted URL was https://oak.space/blog .)

Awesome, thanks! You could also change it to the homepage if you'd think that would work better for people. https://oak.space

Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#57

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

iknowstuff wrote: post #45
sourdecor wrote: post #4

I have always wanted a version control system that was basically Emacs/Vim/Neovim's undo-tree[0] but persistent and social. Why do I have to manually talk to git? You are a computer, track every modification I make while editing and let me decide (or help me decide) on what a checkpoint is. [0]: https://i.sstatic.net/4vbd9.png

Zed’s DeltaDB is that very idea I believe https://zed.dev/deltadb

is there some more information about DeltaDB? this seems to be an early access feature and not something available at the moment but I would be interested to learn more about it.

Edit: this was actually announced at a very recent blog post (11 july 2026 so just 11 days ago): https://zed.dev/blog/introducing-deltadb

The blogpost also has some more relevant information as well.

Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#58

Post by dang »

zdgeier wrote: post #56
dang wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since many commenters had a variant of this response, I've turned the post into a Show HN above (more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48633408 ). (The submitted title was "Git is forever. I'm building Oak anyways." and the submitted URL was https://oak.space/blog .)

Awesome, thanks! You could also change it to the homepage if you'd think that would work better for people. https://oak.space

Ah thanks - I forgot to change the top link. In this case I think https://oak.space/oak/oak is probably more enticing to the community because they get to see what it actually looks like - so I've used that URL instead.

Re: Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents

#60

Post by zdgeier »

dang wrote: post #58
zdgeier wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome, thanks! You could also change it to the homepage if you'd think that would work better for people. https://oak.space

Ah thanks - I forgot to change the top link. In this case I think https://oak.space/oak/oak is probably more enticing to the community because they get to see what it actually looks like - so I've used that URL instead.

Sick, looks great!
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