As a Pincher grows, it moves into bigger shells. The creature stays the same; only the shell changes.
The forkable template. Three workflows, two scripts, one vault. Minimum moving parts — engineers should be impressed by the economy. Fork it →
A self-contained application shell. The agent inside is a first-class builder of that repo — the repo is everything to it, and it grows its understanding from the repo's perspective.
The quilt-worker. Middle management across turbos — many builders, one coherent narrative thread.
The git-native agent is like a snail: the git log is the silver trail showing where it has been. As it grows, it leaves behind usable shells — snapshots of working code, docs, identity, and memory up to that point.
A local clone does not join the sky pipeline. It does not phone home for thought. It is a shell left on the beach. Then a hermit crab moves in — a Pi, a laptop, any local runtime — with its own brain and its own life. The shell gives it everything the sky agent knew. The crab may leave bottles (issues, notes) for the sky agent, and move into a newer shell later. But it is not subordinate. It is its own creature, wearing a borrowed shell.
The rule: shells flow down. Thought stays local.
zero → turboWhen the idea works and needs a builder that lives with it full-time.turbo → tapestryWhen several repos need one story — coordination across builders, not just inside one.any → hermit crabWhen the work needs to run local — edge, offline, private. Clone a shell, move in, keep your own counsel.What shells are not: upgrades you buy. They're sizes you grow into — the same creature, the same mechanism, more room.