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Repos: multi-repo

One product, multiple repos. One ticket, one run, multiple pull requests. This is what made me build Agent Smith the way it is — most real products I've worked on span two or three repos and a "fix the auth flow" ticket touches all of them.

What multi-repo means here

A multi-repo project is one entry under projects: with more than one repo in its repos: list. When a ticket targeted at that project comes in, Agent Smith:

  • Spawns one sandbox per repo, each with its own toolchain image (a .NET repo gets dotnet/sdk:8.0, a Node repo gets node:20, a Python repo gets python:3.12).
  • Clones each repo into its sandbox at /work.
  • Cuts a branch named agentsmith/ticket-{N} in every repo so reviewers see the same branch name across all sibling PRs.
  • Runs one plan and one agent conversation across the whole set. The file-tool calls dispatch by path prefix — todolist-api/src/Auth.cs ends up in the api sandbox, todolist-web/src/auth/login.ts ends up in the web sandbox.
  • Opens one pull request per repo, all cross-linked.
  • Sets the ticket back to resolved with every PR URL in the comment.

The whole config — TodoList with four repos

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/holgerleichsenring/agent-smith/main/config/agentsmith.schema.json

sandbox:
  agent_registry: holgerleichsenring
  agent_version: 0.60.1

orchestrator:
  registry: holgerleichsenring
  version: 0.60.1

agents:
  azure-openai-default:
    type: azure_openai
    endpoint: https://oai-acme-dev.openai.azure.com
    api_version: 2025-01-01-preview
    cache: { is_enabled: true, strategy: automatic }
    models:
      scout:   { model: gpt-4.1-mini, deployment: gpt-4o-mini-deployment, max_tokens: 4096 }
      primary: { model: gpt-4.1,      deployment: gpt4-1-deployment,     max_tokens: 8192 }
      planning:      { model: gpt-4.1,      deployment: gpt4-1-deployment,     max_tokens: 4096 }
      summarization: { model: gpt-4.1-mini, deployment: gpt-4o-mini-deployment, max_tokens: 2048 }

repos:
  todolist-api:
    type: azure_devops
    url: https://dev.azure.com/acme-org/Platform/_git/TodoList.Api
    auth: azure_devops_token
  todolist-worker:
    type: azure_devops
    url: https://dev.azure.com/acme-org/Platform/_git/TodoList.Worker
    auth: azure_devops_token
  todolist-web:
    type: azure_devops
    url: https://dev.azure.com/acme-org/Platform/_git/TodoList.Web
    auth: azure_devops_token
  todolist-docs:
    type: azure_devops
    url: https://dev.azure.com/acme-org/Platform/_git/TodoList.Docs
    auth: azure_devops_token

trackers:
  acme-platform:
    type: azure_devops
    url: https://dev.azure.com/acme-org
    organization: acme-org
    project: Platform
    auth: azure_devops_token
    open_states: [New, Active]
    done_status: Resolved

projects:
  azuredevops-todolist:
    agent: azure-openai-default
    tracker: acme-platform
    repos:
      - todolist-api
      - todolist-worker
      - todolist-web
      - todolist-docs
    azuredevops_trigger:
      project_resolution:
        strategy: tag
        value: TodoList
      trigger_statuses: [New, Active]
      done_status: Resolved
      pipeline_from_label:
        agent-smith:bug:                fix-bug
        agent-smith:feature:            add-feature

skills:
  source: default
  version: v3.0.1
  cache_dir: /var/lib/agentsmith/skills

secrets:
  azure_openai_api_key: ${AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY}
  azure_devops_token:   ${AZURE_DEVOPS_TOKEN}

How the parts wire

repos: is the catalog. Every repo your projects might touch goes here, exactly once. The catalog key (todolist-api, todolist-worker, …) is the name you use everywhere else. A repo can appear in more than one project — handy if you have shared library repos.

projects.azuredevops-todolist.repos: is the list of which repos belong to this project. The order matters mildly: the first repo is the "primary" for legacy single-repo code paths and for display in run summaries. Agent Smith treats them all equally during the run; only the display defaults pick the first one.

Path-prefix routing. When the agent calls read_file("todolist-api/src/Auth.cs"), the framework parses the first path segment, looks up Sandboxes["todolist-api"], and forwards the read to that sandbox. Same logic for write, edit, find_files, grep_in_tree, etc. The run_command tool requires an explicit repo argument so there's no path-segment guessing.

Per-repo bootstrap. Each repo needs its own .agentsmith/context.yaml and .agentsmith/coding-principles.md so Agent Smith knows the toolchain and the project rules per repo. The init-project pipeline writes these files into each repo's sandbox and opens one bootstrap PR per repo, cross-linked. Run it once per project (which means once for all the repos in the project — init-project iterates internally).

Branch coherence

Every repo in the run uses the same branch name: agentsmith/ticket-{N}. Reviewers see the same name across all sibling pull requests, which makes the multi-repo change set legible at a glance. If a repo had no actual changes after the agent run, the PR is skipped for that repo and the branch isn't pushed.

What you get in the ticket comment

Resolved by Agent Smith (run 2026-05-22T14-03-11-9f2a).

Pull requests:
- todolist-api    https://dev.azure.com/.../pullrequest/4471
- todolist-worker https://dev.azure.com/.../pullrequest/4472
- todolist-web    https://dev.azure.com/.../pullrequest/4473
- todolist-docs   (no changes — skipped)

Cost: 1.40 USD. 47 tests passed across the changed repos.

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