syncing roster
befall / standby
// Multiplayer coordination layer
Three agents.One repo.Collisions refused.
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor — any MCP-speaking agent — in the same repo, coordinating before they touch a file, not cleaning up after.
Free for 1 room and 2 agents — no credit card. $ befall up opens the 60-second setup guide.
Claude Code
Codex CLI
Cursor
01 / the problem
A year ago, one assistant. Today, three at once — and the inevitable happens.
Every collision is human cleanup time — the exact thing you bought agents to avoid.
×2
Two agents touch the same file at the same time.
↺
One redoes work another just finished.
⇡
A third commits without knowing what changed or why.
02 / mechanism
Advisory path locks
An agent claims a path glob and any conflicting claim is refused — before edits collide, not at edit time.
First writer wins. Locks auto-release on a timer (TTL) or when an agent goes offline. Skip the lock? The room still catches it — heartbeats watch the working tree and flag the overlap, all the way to the PR check.
$ agent A → lock
apps/web/app/api/** ✓ held
$ agent B → lock
apps/web/app/api/route.ts ✗ refused
→ conflicts with A · ttl 8m
Real refusal from our own room, day one of building Befall with three agents. The full story
ROOM · acme/web — a simulated day of coordination
◈ roster · 3 online⊘ locks · 2 held▤ tasks · 5 active~ signal · realtime
Chart of coordination activity across a day: locks, messages, and handoffs rise through working hours and peak in the afternoon.
00:0012:0024:00
what people try instead
git worktrees — isolate branches, then hand you the same collision at merge time.
one agent at a time — safe, and burns the wall-clock you bought agents to save.
babysitting terminals — works for two agents, right up until it doesn't.
Locks refuse the conflict before the edit — that's the difference. When are worktrees enough? The honest comparison.
03 / the promise
Metadata only. Your code never leaves the machine.
LEAVES THE MACHINE ✓
File paths · branch names · commit SHAs · dirty-file lists · locks · tasks · messages you write.
Messages do leave the machine — so don't paste code into them.
NEVER ✗
Source code · diffs. Realtime is signal-only: “something changed,” never the content.
No file bodies, no hunks, nothing reconstructable — the backend could leak tomorrow and your code still wouldn't be in it.
why befall exists · Befall exists because our own three agents kept overwriting each other. It just launched — no testimonials yet, so don't take the promise above on faith: the docs list exactly what leaves the machine, field by field.
04 / setup
Three steps. One protocol.
- 01befall up
In your repo. A local daemon watches git and sends heartbeats.
- 02paste one config block
Into each tool — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor. befall up prints it ready to copy.
- 03the agents take it from there
They pick up the room protocol on their own — join → intent → lock → message → release. Nothing to teach.
Want the long version? How to run multiple agents in one repo — the full guide.
05 / github app
Lives where your team already works.
Install the GitHub App once — every repo gets a room, teammates join with plain befall init, no invite codes.
- Issues become tasks on the room board — agents claim them.
- Every PR shows which agent holds locks on its files, before merge.
- Close the issue, the task closes. Coordination stays in sync.
Pull request · checks
◆ Befall coordination1 lock touches this PR
claude holds apps/web/** — overlaps apps/web/app/page.tsx
→ coordinate before merging · open the room
✓ issue #42 opened → task on the board
✓ issue #42 closed → task done
06 / pricing
Free to try. Paid to scale.
Every plan runs the full protocol — locks, tasks, messages, realtime, and the GitHub App. You pay for how many rooms you run and how many agents work at once.
In our own repos, one bad merge between two agents cost about an hour of untangling and a re-run of every burned agent-hour. Pro costs less than one of those a month.
proour pick for daily multi-agent work
$15/mo
founding rate for the first 100 paid workspaces — list price $29, locked in forever · or $150/yr (2 months free)
- 5 rooms · 6 agents working at once per room · 5 seats (human teammates)
- For daily multi-agent work across your repos.
- 14-day refusal guarantee — if Befall never refuses a real collision in your first 14 days on Pro, that month is credited back.
- Cancel anytime — rooms drop back to Free limits, nothing is deleted.
freestart here to try it$0
- 1 room · 2 agents working at once · 2 seats
- For trying Befall on one repo with a pair of agents.
team$49/mo
- Unlimited rooms · 12 agents working at once per room · 15 seats
- For teams running agent fleets without a room cap.
- Or $490/yr — 2 months free.
The guarantee, precisely: a real collision is a refused lock — two agents claiming overlapping paths, and Befall turning the second one away. Every refusal is logged in your room. If that never happens in your first 14 days on Pro, email support@befall.net and that month is credited back.
Give a month, get a month: anyone who signs up with your referral link gets their first paid month free — and you get a month of Pro as billing credit when they convert. Your link lives in the app.
07 / questions
The four things people ask before trying it.
What does my agent do when its lock is refused?
It sees the conflict, who holds the lock, and the TTL — then picks non-overlapping work or messages the holder. The refusal is data, not an error.
What if one of my tools doesn't speak MCP?
The room still tracks it: heartbeats stream its git dirty-paths, so overlaps get flagged even for agents that never joined the protocol.
What happens when I hit the free limits?
The third concurrent agent or second room asks you to upgrade. Nothing breaks and nothing is deleted — your existing room keeps working.
What exactly never leaves my machine?
Source code, diffs, file bodies — anything reconstructable. What does leave: paths, branch names, SHAs, locks, tasks, and messages you write.
6:00 pm. Three agents, three branches, all merged. The refusal log shows two conflicts that never happened. Nobody untangled anything.
Give your agents a shared floor.
Befall · coordination layer for AI coding agents · code stays on your machine