--- title: JetBrains Thinkrail | daily.dev description: ThinkRail is a JetBrains incubator project: an agentic IDE built around the 'pi' coding agent. It isolates agent work into git-worktree workspaces with their... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/jetbrains-thinkrail-3fuhaxcl0 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: JetBrains Thinkrail | daily.dev og:description: ThinkRail is a JetBrains incubator project: an agentic IDE built around the 'pi' coding agent. It isolates agent work into git-worktree workspaces with their... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/jetbrains-thinkrail-3fuhaxcl0 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/3FuhAxcl0.png og:image:alt: JetBrains Thinkrail og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # JetBrains Thinkrail **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 11 min read · 7 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary ThinkRail is a JetBrains incubator project: an agentic IDE built around the 'pi' coding agent. It isolates agent work into git-worktree workspaces with their own branch, so multiple agents can run in parallel without touching your checkout. A graph of SPEC.md files gives the agent durable project knowledge, and it supports MCP servers, Agent Skills, and multiple concurrent pi chat sessions per workspace. It ships as a native desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) or a 'thinkrail' CLI, and requires Bun 1.4.4 and Node.js 22.19+ to build. The UI is built with React 19, Zustand, and Tailwind v4. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is JetBrains ThinkRail and how does it use the pi coding agent? ThinkRail is a JetBrains incubator project, an agentic IDE built as a rich interface around the 'pi' coding agent. It isolates agent work into git-worktree-based workspaces so multiple agents can run in parallel without touching the main checkout, maintains project knowledge through SPEC.md files, and supports MCP servers, Agent Skills, and multiple concurrent pi sessions per workspace. _Developers evaluating new agentic IDEs can follow releases like this one on daily.dev._ ### What are the system requirements to build ThinkRail from source? Building ThinkRail requires Bun 1.4.4 as the pinned package manager and runtime, plus Node.js version 22.19 or higher, which the in-process pi engine needs, along with an authenticated pi provider for agent work. The UI client is built with React 19, Zustand, and Tailwind v4, while the engine host runs on Bun.serve with HTTP and WebSocket support. _Developers setting up new agent tooling track exact dependency versions like these on daily.dev._ ### What usage data does ThinkRail collect from users? ThinkRail collects basic usage events like launches, chat creation, message sends, and provider connections, tied to a random installation ID, but never includes prompts, code, files, credentials, or account identity. Error reports tied to the same ID include only the error type, code, and location in ThinkRail's own code, never error messages, file paths, or project contents. Additional usage data is shared only when a toggle is enabled. _Developers weighing privacy tradeoffs in AI dev tools compare disclosures like this on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 78 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-25). **TL;DR:** Reaction is largely skeptical, with heavy criticism of the AI-generated README/specs and confusion over why JetBrains keeps launching overlapping agentic products (Air, Fleet, Thinkrail), alongside tangents about git worktrees vs jj and running agents outside containers. **Sentiment:** 20% positive · 35% mixed · 45% skeptical **The case for** - Some see it as a promising step toward a unified agentic IDE interface and like that it's built on the 'pi' agent. - A few longtime JetBrains users say they're willing to give it a try despite reduced daily usage of JetBrains IDEs. - The SPEC.md/spec-first workflow concept drew genuine interest from some commenters. **The pushback** - Many are put off by what they perceive as obviously AI-generated README and SPEC docs, questioning the project's care and credibility. - Confusion and skepticism about JetBrains releasing multiple overlapping agentic tools (Air, Fleet, Thinkrail) without clear strategy. - Existing worktree support in JetBrains IDEs is criticized as buggy and poorly implemented, undermining confidence in this new tool. - Concerns about running agents without container/VM isolation being risky. - Frustration that enterprise/team JetBrains accounts can't be used, forcing costlier API usage. - Some feel JetBrains' core IDEs and AI integrations have become bloated, clunky, or less relevant, fueling distrust of new releases. - Skepticism about why it's built with a web-based Monaco editor/TypeScript stack rather than something more native or performant. **By community** - hackernews (skeptical): Discussion skews critical, dominated by complaints about AI-slop documentation, JetBrains' scattered product strategy, and prior bad experiences with JetBrains' worktree and AI tooling, though a minority express cautious interest. **Hottest debate:** Whether AI-generated README/spec documentation signals a low-effort, low-care project or is a legitimate and acceptable use of AI tooling. **Open questions** - What is JetBrains' actual long-term strategy across Thinkrail, Air, and past efforts like Fleet? - Why was Bun chosen as a build dependency instead of more common tooling like pnpm? - Will Thinkrail support full Pi extensions and better enterprise/team billing than API-based competitors? - How does the SPEC.md graph system work in practice and where can more detail be found? **Highlights** > I refuse to take a repo with an AI-generated readme seriously. If you haven't bothered to write a readme, what else have you not bothered to do? (100% AI according to Pangram btw) > — [exizt88 on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50235595) > Didn't JetBrains release JetBrains Air recently? This looks like it's basically the same basic premise, except implemented differently. What's their strategy here, are they just launching competing products? https://www.jetbrains.com/air/ > — [Deukhoofd on hackernews · 4 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50235872) > Yeah, their worktree implementation was very recently hacked in, and it really doesn't work well. The IDE project list duplicate entries for every worktree, IDE project settings don't transfer across worktrees, and every time I switch to another worktree it asks me again what project I want to open, instead of just opening the same solution I have opened. It's wild that a set of IDEs that are generally fairly good just completely fail in this basic workflow. I really wonder what went through the minds of the product owners and developers that implemented this. > — [Deukhoofd on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50235810) > It seems that Air is a strategic product, and Thinkrail is more of an experiment. While they are both "agentic development tools", it seems that Air is mostly concerned with managing multiple agents, whereas Thinkrail is about spec-first development. > — [smokel on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50236029) > The problem with all the AI IDE's is you can't use them with most enterprise/teams accounts, you have to use API which can cost upto to 10x more over an enterprise plan. I really like JetBrains, used them for a LONG time, but just find myself doing 99% of my day to day with iterm and sublime now. > — [hkchad on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50236061) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50233294) · 105 points · 78 comments ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@mehakulfat** · 1 upvotes > ThinkRail is an innovative AI-powered development environment that makes coding smarter, faster, and more organized. Its ability to run multiple AI agents in parallel, manage isolated Git workspaces, and maintain project knowledge makes it a promising tool for modern software development. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [pi.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/pi-dev-m8ldx0c1j) · Hacker News · 17 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Vibe Code: A Developer's Playbook](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-vibe-code-a-developer-s-playbook-757x49kxw) · Daily Dose of Data Science \| Avi Chawla \| Substack · 5 upvotes · 0 comments - [Vibe Coding: The Complete Developer's Guide \(2026\)](https://daily.dev/posts/vibe-coding-the-complete-developer-s-guide-2026--gu0an8f5l) · SitePoint · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#typescript](https://daily.dev/tags/typescript), [#agentic-ai](https://daily.dev/tags/agentic-ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/jetbrains-thinkrail-3fuhaxcl0) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"JetBrains Thinkrail","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/jetbrains-thinkrail-3fuhaxcl0","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/jetbrains-thinkrail-3fuhaxcl0"},"datePublished":"2026-10-25T20:09:21.571Z","dateModified":"2026-10-25T21:40:31.573Z","description":"ThinkRail is a JetBrains incubator project: an agentic IDE built around the 'pi' coding agent. 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