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Give every agent task its own branch: a copy-on-write database with the parent’s data, a forked bucket, and a running copy of the app at its own URL. A branch’s resources are fully separate — its own connection string, bucket, and machines — so work an agent does on its own branch never reaches main or another agent’s branch. The branch boundary is separation: any command that accepts --branch can still reach another branch when you tell it to, so the isolation comes from agents working on their own branch by default.

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Why branches

An agent that shares an environment with you — or with another agent — can corrupt data or race migrations. A branch removes that class of problem:
  • Real data, zero risk. The branch’s Postgres opens with the parent’s data. Broken migrations and bad writes stay on the branch.
  • A live URL from the start. Branch compute comes up running the parent’s image, so the agent can see the app working before its first deploy.
  • Disposable. When the task is done, delete the branch. Ten branches per project caps how far a fleet can sprawl.

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The workflow

Per task, the agent runs these itself if it has the insta skill:
insta branch create forks from your current branch (choose explicitly with --from). After switch, every CLI command — secrets, db url, run, deploy — targets the branch automatically. MCP agents pass branch explicitly instead; they have no linked directory.

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Promote and clean up

Promotion is a migration, not a copy:
  1. Merge the agent’s code branch in git.
  2. Run the migration files against main’s database.
  3. insta branch switch main, then insta deploy ..
  4. Delete the branch:
insta branch merge <source> --into main creates any service the branch added as an empty service of the same type and name on the target — deploy to it afterwards; data never merges. Audit what the agent did at any point with insta agent events.
On self-hosted InstaCloud OSS, a merged compute group is created and deployed with the source branch’s image, against the target’s own database and bucket — an agent-built image can go live on main through merge alone.