Wave 13: Shipmas - Parallel Agents, Git Worktrees, and Near-Frontier Coding Performance For Free With SWE-1.5
Wave 13 brings first-class support for parallel, multi-agent sessions in Windsurf, along with Git worktrees, side-by-side Cascade panes, and a dedicated terminal profile for more reliable agent execution.
And here’s our Shipmas gift to you: We`re introducing a new variant of SWE-1.5 that is free for all users for the next 3 months. You get the full intelligence of SWE-1.5, just at standard throughput speeds instead of the blazing-fast >900 tokens/second that comes with the paid variant. SWE-1.5 Free will replace SWE-1 as the default model in Windsurf starting today.
🎄 Git Worktree Support in Cascade
Windsurf now supports Git worktrees, letting you spawn multiple Cascade sessions in the same repository without conflicts. Git worktrees check out different branches into separate directories while sharing the same Git history.
🕯️ Multi-Cascade Panes & Tabs: See All Your Sessions At Once
You can already run multiple Cascade sessions in Windsurf at the same time. Now, you can view and interact with them in separate panes and tabs within the same window. This lets you monitor progress and compare outputs of sessions side-by-side, or even turn Windsurf into a big Cascade session.
🏠 Cascade’s Dedicated Terminal (Beta)
Starting with Wave 13, Windsurf introduces a new approach for letting agents execute terminal commands. Instead of your default shell, Cascade will now run commands in a dedicated zsh shell specifically configured for reliability. The Cascade Dedicated Terminal can use the environment variables you set in your .zshrc configuration and is interactive, which means you can answer any prompts from shell scripts without having to break your flow. This should improve the reliability and speed of shell commands, especially for users with complicated prompts (ex. powerlevel10k).
In this version, the Cascade Dedicated Terminal will be opt-in for Windsurf Stable on macOS. If you are experiencing issues with the older legacy terminal, we recommend switching to the new terminal early. We expect to make this feature the default in the future, while maintaining the legacy terminal extension for backwards compatibility purposes.
🎁 A Shipmas Gift: SWE-1.5 Free, Available For Free
Our near-frontier model, SWE-1.5, is now available for free to all users. SWE-1.5 Free (codename Penguin Alpha) has the full intelligence of SWE-1.5, with the same coding performance on SWE-Bench-Pro, but delivered at standard throughput speeds. The original variant of SWE-1.5 that his hosted on Cerebras will continue to be available. Read our blog post on SWE-1.5.
For the past few weeks, SWE-1.5 Free has been available to users under the codename Penguin Alpha. The reactions have been encouraging:
🌟 Context Window Indicator
When a model’s context window grows too long, earlier context can be dropped without warning and performance can degrade. Cascade already extends the window by occasionally summarizing messages and clearing history. This release adds a visual indicator to see how much of your context window is currently in use, helping you anticipate limits and decide when to start a new session.
More Updates in Wave 13
Beyond the headline features, this release includes hundreds of improvements and bug fixes since Wave 12:
- Cascade Hooks: Execute custom commands at key points during the agent execution lifecycle (e.g. after each message)
- System-level Rules & Workflows: Enterprises can deploy rules and workflows via MDM policies
- Enhanced Diff Experience: Improved diff zone behavior with configurable scroll settings
- Better Terminal Output: Preserved colors and styling in Cascade terminal output
- MCP Improvements: Multiple fixes to the Model Context Protocol implementation
Plus many stability fixes, performance optimizations, and quality-of-life improvements. Read the full changelog to see everything that shipped, or download Windsurf to try it out.
We hope this Wave helps you finish the year strong and kick off 2026 right. Merry Shipmas! 🎅🚢