9 ms·

Herdr: One terminal to rule them all

404 points by handfuloflight 4mo ago

whitefang 4mo ago
I just want the sound notification when they are blocked/done.
ori_b 4mo ago
Vibecoded. Nope.
- andhug 4mo ago
  i mean the app is for vibe coding, what did you really expect?
  - r-w 4mo ago
    Then it doesn't "rule them all" for anyone who needs a terminal, does it?
- jatora 4mo ago
  Good call. Break up with her first before she breaks up with you.
- nullbio 3mo ago
  Everything is vibecoded now, better get used to it. Aside from that, the quality of the project is great. Vibecoded doesn't automatically mean bad.
- reddit_clone 3mo ago
  That ship has sailed boss. I don't think you can avoid those much longer.
  - ori_b 3mo ago
    I sure can. Especially if you aren't paying me to use your unpleasant software.
linsomniac 4mo ago
I've been using Herdr for running my AI agents and it has been really nice. I like that I can reconnect to it from multiple sessions (I have one up in a window on my desktop, and when I ssh in from my "after hours" laptop I can also attach to it there and continue one if I'm at my son's Dr appt or the like. I can also attach to it natively from my Mac over SSH transport as well as resuming a remote wezterm connection that is running herdr. A few small downsides: I can't copy/paste in wezterm using the keyboard/vim keys because it is constantly drawing the screen and unselects my selection. The mouse drag in herdr works very well though. It'd also be nice if you could rebind key mappings in the UI, because I still haven't rebound the keys and am using the mouse.
- dbl000 4mo ago
  How is this different from sshing into a server and attaching to a tmux session? I don't see the benefits in switching over.
  - jboss10 4mo ago
    I think most of this can be done with tmux and some simple extras. An afternoon of vibing.
    - fragmede 4mo ago
      Yes but someone else has put in the effort so I don't have to. I could go to the supermarket and buy a bunch of groceries and make food, or I could buy food from a restaurant.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
  - linsomniac 4mo ago
    The primary benefit I've gotten over just a straight tmux session is that there is a collapsable left "tab" bar that shows you your different workspaces, which you can relabel, and below that is a list of the agents you are running (claude code, codex, etc) along with their status (idle, blocked, working). So I will start a workspace for each different thing I'm working on, label it "Studio Shed Packet", "Teapot game", "Mux experiment". Then in each one I run a Claude Code. Then I can see the status of my Claude Codes just by glancing at the sidebar, rather than having to switch between screens to see what is waiting next. I've been using it around a week so far.
3abiton 4mo ago
I still don't fully get the additional value over tmux, beside notification regarding the agent status?
- linsomniac 4mo ago
  For me, that was the big selling point. If you aren't working with multiple agents at once, I'm not sure you'd pick Herdr.
- she46BiOmUerPVj 4mo ago
  You can create per-pane titles now in tmux. I'm sure you could pipe status to that. I use it for installing machines.
- Trufa 4mo ago
  I couldn't ever for the life of me incorporate tmux into my muscle memory, tmux came naturally so did herdr that just clicked. Can't tell you what it is, brain wired like that or smth.
- kkapelon 4mo ago
  There is a whole page about this https://herdr.dev/compare/ https://herdr.dev/compare/ For me the killer feature is the git worktree management. But in essence it is tmux on steroid (Specifically for agents)
  - fridder 3mo ago
    I wonder if it works with jj workspaces as well. I guess I have something new to tryout today
    - soulbadguy 3mo ago
      Sadly it does not. There are both a discussion about support for non-git vcs (https://github.com/ogulcancelik/herdr/discussions/522 https://github.com/ogulcancelik/herdr/discussions/522) and about jj specifically. Hopefully any of those get some traction
dagss 4mo ago
Is there git worktree support? With the long waits for agents to do stuff I really don't see how one can get anything done without multitasking with multiple worktrees in parallel. So I'd want support for listing the worktrees and then have a list of agents within each worktree. Emdash and Nimbalyst have this kind of UI. Unfortunately both of them want to manage the state of each worktree group themselves; I'm looking for something that just would just call git worktree directly so that I can switch more seamlessly between CLI and IDE/TUI..
- dv_dt 4mo ago
  what is the advantage of git worktree vs using a git remote set to a local file upstream.
  - dools 4mo ago
    What is the advantage of a git remote set to a local upstream vs a git worktree?
  - jamie_ca 4mo ago
    I'm sure they're roughly equivalent. Parent is probably actually asking: is there native support for managing multiple checkouts/branches for parallel work (and I would add: with lifecycle hooks for create/teardown so I can have dedicated test databases etc).
  - dagss 4mo ago
    As the sibling comments note, this is kind of off-topic to my post. But I think git worktrees are a bit more ergonomic, I don't have to think about local vs upstream there's just one place to push. I like to organize my projects like this: myproject/.repo/git # bare repository .. my own convention.. myproject/main # worktrees from ../.repo/git myproject/feature1 myproject/feature2
    - nomel 4mo ago
      The problem I have with worktrees is when I need to switch branches to merge or something. If a work tree for any branch involved exists, git prevents me from switching to it. So, I have to go clone somewhere else, do whatever, then update everything. I really wish git didn't care about the other worktree folders contained, since it clearly doesn't anyways, since you can switch any existing worktree folder to any branch you want. So, I no longer use worktrees, and just copy and existing/clone a new folder. I think all my problems go away with jujustu.
essenial 4mo ago
[flagged]
spudlyo 4mo ago
So I've tried to figure out why you might want to use this over Tmux, and essentially I think it comes to down to: - everything is mouse clickable - tmux style display-popups are used for friendly UI interactions everywhere - it has a UI for agents running in panes, with a cool status (idle/working) display - has opinionated defaults like automatic clipboard copy on mouse text select - makes nested sessions easier & has default affordances for remote SSH attach - is generally prettier - uses display-popups for notifications Otherwise it seems exactly like tmux.
- cyanydeez 4mo ago
  you dropped this >rust
- jonfw 4mo ago
  Mobile support?
  - spudlyo 4mo ago
    The example I saw of "mobile support" was connecting via a mobile terminal emulator. I don't see how that is any different than using tmux with the same mobile terminal emulator.
    - codybontecou 4mo ago
      The clickable areas work on mobile as well - at least using supported clients like Moshi
      - deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
      - ptgamr 3mo ago
        And TermRover.sh
    - uasi 4mo ago
      Herdr supports mobile-friendly layouts seamlessly, just like responsive web pages. On a narrow terminal, the sidebar is automatically hidden, and the tab bar is replaced with a status line (current workspace name, current tab name, and agent statuses). Everything else is tucked into the hamburger menu.
anr0 4mo ago
how does this compare to superset and conductor?
- kkapelon 4mo ago
  There is a whole page just on this subject https://herdr.dev/compare/ https://herdr.dev/compare/
- scubbo 4mo ago
  Conductor is a more fully-featured app rather than a TUI (some people might prefer one or the other), and is Mac-only.
colesantiago 4mo ago
I read the website and still don't understand what this solves. Doesn't tmux and zellij do all of these things that 'herdr' does?
- fragmede 4mo ago
  yes but this does it wrapped up together.
- derdi 4mo ago
  This 6-minute video (linked from the website) demoes it nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnIu-Xu64H0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnIu-Xu64H0 It sets up a bunch of panes for you and tracks your agents' status and everything is clickable. You could probably do much of the same by setting up tmux appropriately. Or you could use this, which is already set up. I tried herdr today, and it's not bad. Better than my previous many terminal tabs. Copy-and-paste is wonky (and it's ridiculous that copying is documented in multiple places in the docs, but pasting is never mentioned). And when an agent is waiting for a shell command, it shows as "idle", which IMO is wrong. Still, seems OK so far, I'll stick with it for a while.
- kkapelon 4mo ago
  tmux and zellij are compared here https://herdr.dev/compare/ https://herdr.dev/compare/
- nullbio 3mo ago
  Yes, but better.
beepbooptheory 4mo ago
> Each runs in its own real terminal, on a server that keeps it alive when you close the laptop. How does one describe what's happening with stuff like this? Where a business tries to intercept people who are still learning the lay of some land, to get them to pay for something that they just haven't learned yet can be essentially free to them? Is there a word for it?
kordlessagain 4mo ago
I've been working on Hyperia, which is very similar: https://github.com/deepbluedynamics/hyperia https://github.com/deepbluedynamics/hyperia. Hyperia is a fork of Hyper Terminal. Both are open source. Competition is good for this space, I think, especially for the user. There's also cmux and Intelligent Terminal (by Microsoft). I do separation of concerns with the agent orchestrator (Nemesis8): https://github.com/deepbluedynamics/nemesis8 https://github.com/deepbluedynamics/nemesis8. That can be run with or without Hyperia. I do not suggest anyone run agents on their bare metal. Putting them in a container gets a lot of wins, especially around log aggregation. Working now on a Splunk/Loggly-like interface for searching logs, tool runs (useful in tuning a custom local MoE drafter) and full session suspend, stop, detach, and search. It also does single MCP tool installs for all agents. Nemesis also supports dynamic port exposure to the host metal, for testing agent builds inside their containers. Hyperia has a lot of extra features as well that I have found personally useful: - Sticky notes (search too) - addressable panes in addressable tabs, tabs in windows, multiple windows - full ACLs across panes, notes, tabs, windows - Poke-a-pane to keep an agent going (any agent, not just CC which has a timer function) - webpanes with markdown extraction, JavaScript injection - directory pickers for people who find cd'ing to things confusing or those weary of typing nearly the same directory path over and over again in new terminals (not perfect, but I'm iterating on it) - a built in agent loop (in the Rust sidecar) that allows using local models for tool calls (needs a trained drafter to make it viable) or using a local model for token maxxing (compresses reads of panes by frontier models) - pane splits down/up/left/right and quick layouts. As for whether it was "vibe coded" or not, or Herdr for that matter, I don't think that term is useful, other than for quick judgment. No, this is not a one-prompt project. I've spent 100s of hours on it, started out with Hyper, and did a crazy amount of planning on how to architect it. I have done systems architecture for a living before, and have a strong search background. People who hate on AI, and therfore projects done with AI, are threatened. Nothing more. That's why they shortcut with "AI slop" or "Vibecoded. Nope". That's just ignorance speaking from a standpoint of fear. Slop, whether AI or human, is an effort problem: https://deepbluedynamics.com/blog/ai-slop-effort-problem https://deepbluedynamics.com/blog/ai-slop-effort-problem. Looking at Herdr, it looks solid. Judge the product by it's outcomes, it's use, not whether or not AI wrote it or not. That's the moment we're in though, for now, so downvote or not. I don't care.
graypegg 4mo ago
> Popular with engineers from... (bunch of logos) > Individual engineers, not company endorsements. Bold haha. Maybe that's fine with the disclaimer, but feels like lawyer-bait.
- obmelvin 4mo ago
  I've seen a lot of companies list logos if just a single engineer or team is using the product.
  - bdangubic 4mo ago
    I go from company to company just to be able to add their logo to stuff I use :)
  - graypegg 4mo ago
    Fair haha. I'm no trademark lawyer, but I have to assume there's some wiggle room when you're not actively stealing their trademark and just referencing it... but still, the combined value of endorsements from Google/Nvidia/Amazon/ByteDance/Tencent/Alibaba/SalesForce/IBM etc has to be worth... a lot. That "not company endorsements" is rather load-bearing. I don't think I've seen anyone just say that, so maybe they're being a bit less bold haha. You might as well say Herdr runs on 3 billion devices, go all in! 16 billion devices! Every human on earth installed Herdr twice! (source: study amongst users of herdr, n=5)
    - obmelvin 4mo ago
      I get your point completely. I was (naively, I suppose) pretty surprised when I realized how low most people's threshold is to add a logo and claim a client/brand. I've seen VCs very much encourage this (and shadier) behavior. There's a line between hustling / being an entrepreneur and actively trying to mislead people... clearly we don't all see that line being in the same place (: edit: to be clear, I didn't mean to make such a broad statement about VCs. I'm sure plenty of people do this on their own
  - anticorporate 4mo ago
emosenkis 4mo ago
I thought for a minute that they had built agent support for all terminals, which would render obsolete https://terminai.app https://terminai.app which I just released. Luckily for me, this is on the other end of the spectrum. Maybe there would even be a use case for running herdr as the AI CLI inside of terminai.
vadepaysa 4mo ago
I saw this trending on github yesterday and tried it and liking it so far. What I like: - familiar tmux like key binding (configurable) interface - comes with all the tmux advantages like detach, ssh etc - mouse - nice sidebar I prefer to manage my worktrees manually with a super simple script.
orliesaurus 4mo ago
I cant figure out how to make subagents work with herdr, tried to email the maintainer and got no reply back (yet) - has anyone figured it out?
- nlh 4mo ago
  Can you elaborate a bit on what you're trying to get to work?
  - orliesaurus 3mo ago
    if I have claude code spawn sub-agents to do a task, shouldnt they show up in the sidebar?
r-w 4mo ago
"hurr durr"
pshirshov 4mo ago
I'm happy with tmux - can use it on my phone.
- stronglikedan 4mo ago
  sure, but you can use this on Windows!
robgough 4mo ago
I'm a big tmux fan, but admittedly I've found myself switching between a lot of sessions recently and wishing it was a little bit more mouse friendly. If you're a Mac user, and can forgive the shameless plug, you might find belfry.robgough.net useful. Connects to local and remote machines entirely through tmux, ssh and libghostty - populating the sidebar from tmux session info, and optionally adds a little Claude visibility in there for good measure. There's even an iOS/iPadOS version – though for the moment you'll need to build that yourself. Source is all on Github.
- monk_grilla 4mo ago
  > wishing it was a little bit more mouse friendly Can you explain what you struggle to do in tmux with the mouse? I'm using it as we speak and everything is clickable, panes are resizable, right clicking a windows give you a context menu... Not sure what else is missing?
  - robgough 4mo ago
    Quickly switching between multiple sessions, and seeing which sessions are waiting for input. I generally run a session per project. Then within each session, a window for Claude, a window for running whatever dev server/logs, a window for neovim, and finally a plain terminal window for things like kicking off deploys etc.
    - monk_grilla 3mo ago
      C-b + s or C-b + w for switching sessions is most convenient for me, but if I am running multiple sessions I would usually just open a new tab in my emulator (iTerm2) which can be clicked or hotkeyed between. Anyway, I think multi-session management is a reasonable thing that this thing might improve over tmux, so fair enough.
bloody-crow 4mo ago
I've been using tmux historically and it eventually became too cumbersome since my typical workflow started being a lot more AI-agent heavy. I now run over 10 agents at the same time and they're all working on some multi-hour workstreams that I occasionally need to check in on or unblock. Tmux was not making this particularly easy and I would occasionally lose an agent or forget about it until much later only to realize it's been sitting idle waiting for me to approve something for a few days. I've tried Cmux, but it didn't do it for me, since the agent statuses were displayed on the workspaces and having multiple agents in the same workspace would sometime produce confusing results. I've been using Herdr since the start of the week and so far it's been the best in terms of visibility of what my agents are doing and which of them need attention. The only wart I've noticed so far is that the performance is not always great — sometimes I see the text appearing with a noticeable delay as I type it.
- humam_alhusaini 4mo ago
  Curious, are you using the 10 agents for personal projects or for work?
  - bloody-crow 4mo ago
    Work.
    - teaearlgraycold 4mo ago
      What's an example of what the 10 agents would be doing in parallel? I've never used more than 2 in parallel before.
      - deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
      - y1zhou 4mo ago
        Some tasks could take a while, especially with /goal mode. At work we often have multiple agents running on different tasks, and each could spawn subagents that you may or may not want to track. With the herdr skill you can have subagents be managed via tabs or panes, which gives them more visibility and could also explode your terminal :)
kfsone 4mo ago
So it's like mosh + tmux?
teravor 4mo ago
the rise of the TUIs is an indictment of existing GUIs, you can technically create a GUI that has identical functionality to a TUI and then start adding features that a TUI can't match.
- frumiousirc 3mo ago
  Another way to interpret it is that a massive sample bias is governing your premise. Programmers are embracing LLMs to scratch their own itches and programmers tend to work in terminals (yes, many use IDEs) so they build to their own environments and HN readers and contributors tend to be programmers talking about programming things.
figomore 4mo ago
Does it support port forwarding like ssh -L ... ?
ruined 4mo ago
[flagged]
smashah 4mo ago
i tried giving tmux a go but there is a period where you're kinda going in and out of a tool, maybe not coming back to it for weeks at a time, this is why imo herdr is a really good tool - it doesn't punish you for not remembering the bindings, everything is clickable and as you go you can decide which bindings to learn and commit to instinct when required. I believe all TUIs should be like this from now on. This is also what makes opencode so great/sticky. Great work herdr team, I've only used it for a few days but I know I will be using this for a long time to come.
- ihateolives 3mo ago
  Zellij has context sensitive hint bar that shows possible key bindings. You can turn it off, but by default it's there.
stephen 4mo ago
I get why folks use tmux/herdr, but I already use i3wm/Hyprland for window/workspace management, and want to have "shared first class windows" instead of dual binds of "super-based binds for i3 windows ... oh wait control-a based binds for tmux panes". Has anyone got a tool/setup that is tmux-like but the remote terminals/panes are all local/native windows?
- bitbang 4mo ago
  Yeah... Herdr. Used in thin client mode connecting to remote server.
- chaoxu 4mo ago
  Something like this would be great. It seems what one really need is just persistent terminal session. So this thing probably can be built on top of zmc with a few scripts.
  - chaoxu 4mo ago
    okey just did some investigation. ~/.config/herdr/herdr.sock JSON-RPC API so we can avoid herdr UI. In fact herdr's TUI is using it too. So basically you can write your own tool to make it work (vibe it with AI if you want)
- joshstrange 3mo ago
  ITerm2 has a really great tmux integration where you get native windows or tabs for tmux windows and the panes are really easy to interact with. Of course it’s macOS only but I use it on my MBP and ssh to attach to my tmux sessions from a secondary Mac (getting the same experience remotely) or my phone (without all the niceties, just normal tmux, but still usable)
  - frollogaston 3mo ago
    Ditto, iTerm2 tmux integration is a game-changer. People at work had this whole custom-built solution to help run stuff remotely, and I couldn't even understand what that was for because I'm so used to just iTerm2+tmux.
Striving7340 4mo ago
The deceiving logo marquee is the most annoying thing of this software era. "Popular with people that follow these companies on social media" is the next step to this madness.
chaoxu 4mo ago
Herdr did a lot of things really well. It have a great landing page where you can see and interact, and that really made me try it, and a few of my friend was also captured and immediately understood what it is for. I basically do everything remote, never on my own machine. Once I tried it, I can never go back. It is so simple and worked exactly as I thought how it should work. I would say it is just a modern version of tmux but really thought about user experience of more novice users. For people who come from the mouse world, moving to this is quite seamless. Also, coming to the comments, I would think maybe `zellij` would also work well. Or use `zmc` and build something on top. `zmc` is great, as the then the tab/window management can be handled by the desktop or TUI, depend on what someone want to use.
fernando-ram 4mo ago
[flagged]
whinvik 4mo ago
I have created my own opinionated setup but this comment is not about that. I do think that there should be a protocol such that using these tools becomes more standardized. For example I know that cmux is trying to support a tmux based setup so it feels like tmux could be most of that protocol. There are a lot of tools like this popup and I really think making switching easier is the only way I will try a different tool.
faustlast 4mo ago
another example of people inventing something that Emacs already has.
meling 4mo ago
Does anyone know how this compares to Supacode (https://supacode.sh https://supacode.sh)? I just started using Supacode a few days ago and have been enjoying it so far; it is based on libghostty.
- vianchen 3mo ago
  Supacode is macOS only and is a terminal emulator itself. Herdr is cross-platform and is just a multiplexer. You can use it in any terminal emulator. If you want you can even run Herdr in Supacode
jwr 4mo ago
This looks very similar to what I do in Emacs, using ghostel, which also has the advantage of using libghostty for excellent quality terminal rendering.
joshstrange 3mo ago
I’ve been using tmux (with the wonderful iTerm2 integration) for almost a year now to manage agents as well as organize my workspaces. I initially wrote this off but looking closer I think I’m going to give a shot. My mobile experience is acceptable (Blink shell + tmux) but not ideal and the monitoring of agents is nice. Currently I rely on a hook+Pushover to alert me when my attention is needed which works but has not been without frustration.
manume 3mo ago
More options: https://agentmgmt.dev https://agentmgmt.dev (disclaimer: built by me)
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
iluvcommunism 3mo ago
[dead]
InvidFlower 3mo ago
I did try Herdr but found too many things I expected it to have and just didn't. Right now I've been switching between two different approaches for combined local and remote work. There's the more traditional tmux/zellij way. I have a tailscale and mosh and a script where I can say something like "cw api do-this-feature" and it'll go into the folder of my api, create a worktree, and fire up claude code to use it (and another tab with lazygit and delta so I can do side-by-size diffs). And modified tmux's defaults so the session & window names are more targeted. Then can have it in Ghostty locally or Moshi (https://getmoshi.app/ https://getmoshi.app/) on my phone. Moshi is basically a terminal for iOS but geared toward doing agentic stuff. Has a lot of shortcuts you can add for common commands of tmux, CC, can pinch to change font size, has a built-in diff tool, etc. Also has a small hook you can put in your agent so you get notifications on your phone. And it can directly open the particular tmux/zellij/herdr pane from that (has specific support for those three). So that approach is nice in that you get full access to the harnesses, with no worries that a wrapper has a bug or doesn't support some new feature. But it still doesn't flow as well for me as a "real" wrapper does. For the real wrapper approach, I started with Happy (https://happy.engineering/ https://happy.engineering/) and currently am using Happier (https://happier.dev/ https://happier.dev/). Unlike Moshi, these are open source and basically control the various harnesses and have their own UI. Also have a relay so tailscale isn't necessarily needed, along with encryption in such a way that the person owning the relay can't decrypt the sessions. Happier even has a desktop app. Right now I'm running the dev version of Happier from source on my own machine w/ tailscale, with the testflight version of the app. There's various rough-around-the-edges aspects (and they're currently in the middle of a re-write), but it is nice to have a real UI with tabs for all your sessions, can click in to expand tool calls, to start a new session just select the harness, folder, type a new worktree name, etc and it starts going. So I don't know. I like aspects of both of these and kind of depends on what I'm up to and my current mood. Nothing feels totally perfect yet IMO.
reddit_clone 3mo ago
I use cmux. Has anyone used both and offer some comparison?
ramnique 3mo ago
I've been using tmux for several years and I just tried this and I'm pleasantly surprised! I definitely see myself using this as my goto. Couple of questions: - Do you plan to support viewing file-diffs for the cwd? Currently I keep zed / vscode open on the side to view diffs. It would be great if we could fold those into herdr as well - Is there an easy way to reconfigure the prefix? For tmux i've been using ` for years now, so going back to ctrl+z is a bit of a struggle Great execution btw, congrats!
lofaszvanitt 3mo ago
Why is this a thing? Claude and other clis already implemented everything that average joes published under foss into their client. So why 12 terminal windows when the cli does it itself?
ptgamr 3mo ago
I've just added herdr support for TermRover at https://termrover.sh https://termrover.sh Tmux is still the default, but you can switch to herdr if you're a herdr fan.

404 points by handfuloflight 4mo ago

whitefang 4mo ago

I just want the sound notification when they are blocked/done.

ori_b 4mo ago

Vibecoded. Nope.

andhug 4mo ago
i mean the app is for vibe coding, what did you really expect?
- r-w 4mo ago
  Then it doesn't "rule them all" for anyone who needs a terminal, does it?
jatora 4mo ago
Good call. Break up with her first before she breaks up with you.
nullbio 3mo ago
Everything is vibecoded now, better get used to it. Aside from that, the quality of the project is great. Vibecoded doesn't automatically mean bad.
reddit_clone 3mo ago
That ship has sailed boss. I don't think you can avoid those much longer.
- ori_b 3mo ago
  I sure can. Especially if you aren't paying me to use your unpleasant software.

linsomniac 4mo ago

I've been using Herdr for running my AI agents and it has been really nice. I like that I can reconnect to it from multiple sessions (I have one up in a window on my desktop, and when I ssh in from my "after hours" laptop I can also attach to it there and continue one if I'm at my son's Dr appt or the like. I can also attach to it natively from my Mac over SSH transport as well as resuming a remote wezterm connection that is running herdr. A few small downsides: I can't copy/paste in wezterm using the keyboard/vim keys because it is constantly drawing the screen and unselects my selection. The mouse drag in herdr works very well though. It'd also be nice if you could rebind key mappings in the UI, because I still haven't rebound the keys and am using the mouse.

dbl000 4mo ago
How is this different from sshing into a server and attaching to a tmux session? I don't see the benefits in switching over.
- jboss10 4mo ago
  I think most of this can be done with tmux and some simple extras. An afternoon of vibing.
  - fragmede 4mo ago
    Yes but someone else has put in the effort so I don't have to. I could go to the supermarket and buy a bunch of groceries and make food, or I could buy food from a restaurant.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
- linsomniac 4mo ago
  The primary benefit I've gotten over just a straight tmux session is that there is a collapsable left "tab" bar that shows you your different workspaces, which you can relabel, and below that is a list of the agents you are running (claude code, codex, etc) along with their status (idle, blocked, working). So I will start a workspace for each different thing I'm working on, label it "Studio Shed Packet", "Teapot game", "Mux experiment". Then in each one I run a Claude Code. Then I can see the status of my Claude Codes just by glancing at the sidebar, rather than having to switch between screens to see what is waiting next. I've been using it around a week so far.

3abiton 4mo ago

I still don't fully get the additional value over tmux, beside notification regarding the agent status?

linsomniac 4mo ago
For me, that was the big selling point. If you aren't working with multiple agents at once, I'm not sure you'd pick Herdr.
she46BiOmUerPVj 4mo ago
You can create per-pane titles now in tmux. I'm sure you could pipe status to that. I use it for installing machines.
Trufa 4mo ago
I couldn't ever for the life of me incorporate tmux into my muscle memory, tmux came naturally so did herdr that just clicked. Can't tell you what it is, brain wired like that or smth.
kkapelon 4mo ago
There is a whole page about this https://herdr.dev/compare/ https://herdr.dev/compare/ For me the killer feature is the git worktree management. But in essence it is tmux on steroid (Specifically for agents)
- fridder 3mo ago
  I wonder if it works with jj workspaces as well. I guess I have something new to tryout today
  - soulbadguy 3mo ago
    Sadly it does not. There are both a discussion about support for non-git vcs (https://github.com/ogulcancelik/herdr/discussions/522 https://github.com/ogulcancelik/herdr/discussions/522) and about jj specifically. Hopefully any of those get some traction

dagss 4mo ago

Is there git worktree support? With the long waits for agents to do stuff I really don't see how one can get anything done without multitasking with multiple worktrees in parallel. So I'd want support for listing the worktrees and then have a list of agents within each worktree. Emdash and Nimbalyst have this kind of UI. Unfortunately both of them want to manage the state of each worktree group themselves; I'm looking for something that just would just call git worktree directly so that I can switch more seamlessly between CLI and IDE/TUI..

dv_dt 4mo ago
what is the advantage of git worktree vs using a git remote set to a local file upstream.
- dools 4mo ago
  What is the advantage of a git remote set to a local upstream vs a git worktree?
- jamie_ca 4mo ago
  I'm sure they're roughly equivalent. Parent is probably actually asking: is there native support for managing multiple checkouts/branches for parallel work (and I would add: with lifecycle hooks for create/teardown so I can have dedicated test databases etc).
- dagss 4mo ago
  As the sibling comments note, this is kind of off-topic to my post. But I think git worktrees are a bit more ergonomic, I don't have to think about local vs upstream there's just one place to push. I like to organize my projects like this: myproject/.repo/git # bare repository .. my own convention.. myproject/main # worktrees from ../.repo/git myproject/feature1 myproject/feature2
  - nomel 4mo ago
    The problem I have with worktrees is when I need to switch branches to merge or something. If a work tree for any branch involved exists, git prevents me from switching to it. So, I have to go clone somewhere else, do whatever, then update everything. I really wish git didn't care about the other worktree folders contained, since it clearly doesn't anyways, since you can switch any existing worktree folder to any branch you want. So, I no longer use worktrees, and just copy and existing/clone a new folder. I think all my problems go away with jujustu.

essenial 4mo ago

[flagged]

spudlyo 4mo ago

So I've tried to figure out why you might want to use this over Tmux, and essentially I think it comes to down to: - everything is mouse clickable - tmux style display-popups are used for friendly UI interactions everywhere - it has a UI for agents running in panes, with a cool status (idle/working) display - has opinionated defaults like automatic clipboard copy on mouse text select - makes nested sessions easier & has default affordances for remote SSH attach - is generally prettier - uses display-popups for notifications Otherwise it seems exactly like tmux.

cyanydeez 4mo ago
you dropped this >rust
jonfw 4mo ago
Mobile support?
- spudlyo 4mo ago
  The example I saw of "mobile support" was connecting via a mobile terminal emulator. I don't see how that is any different than using tmux with the same mobile terminal emulator.
  - codybontecou 4mo ago
    The clickable areas work on mobile as well - at least using supported clients like Moshi
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
    - ptgamr 3mo ago
      And TermRover.sh
  - uasi 4mo ago
    Herdr supports mobile-friendly layouts seamlessly, just like responsive web pages. On a narrow terminal, the sidebar is automatically hidden, and the tab bar is replaced with a status line (current workspace name, current tab name, and agent statuses). Everything else is tucked into the hamburger menu.

anr0 4mo ago

how does this compare to superset and conductor?

kkapelon 4mo ago
There is a whole page just on this subject https://herdr.dev/compare/ https://herdr.dev/compare/
scubbo 4mo ago
Conductor is a more fully-featured app rather than a TUI (some people might prefer one or the other), and is Mac-only.

colesantiago 4mo ago

I read the website and still don't understand what this solves. Doesn't tmux and zellij do all of these things that 'herdr' does?

fragmede 4mo ago
yes but this does it wrapped up together.
derdi 4mo ago
This 6-minute video (linked from the website) demoes it nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnIu-Xu64H0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnIu-Xu64H0 It sets up a bunch of panes for you and tracks your agents' status and everything is clickable. You could probably do much of the same by setting up tmux appropriately. Or you could use this, which is already set up. I tried herdr today, and it's not bad. Better than my previous many terminal tabs. Copy-and-paste is wonky (and it's ridiculous that copying is documented in multiple places in the docs, but pasting is never mentioned). And when an agent is waiting for a shell command, it shows as "idle", which IMO is wrong. Still, seems OK so far, I'll stick with it for a while.
kkapelon 4mo ago
tmux and zellij are compared here https://herdr.dev/compare/ https://herdr.dev/compare/
nullbio 3mo ago
Yes, but better.

beepbooptheory 4mo ago

> Each runs in its own real terminal, on a server that keeps it alive when you close the laptop. How does one describe what's happening with stuff like this? Where a business tries to intercept people who are still learning the lay of some land, to get them to pay for something that they just haven't learned yet can be essentially free to them? Is there a word for it?

kordlessagain 4mo ago

I've been working on Hyperia, which is very similar: https://github.com/deepbluedynamics/hyperia https://github.com/deepbluedynamics/hyperia. Hyperia is a fork of Hyper Terminal. Both are open source. Competition is good for this space, I think, especially for the user. There's also cmux and Intelligent Terminal (by Microsoft). I do separation of concerns with the agent orchestrator (Nemesis8): https://github.com/deepbluedynamics/nemesis8 https://github.com/deepbluedynamics/nemesis8. That can be run with or without Hyperia. I do not suggest anyone run agents on their bare metal. Putting them in a container gets a lot of wins, especially around log aggregation. Working now on a Splunk/Loggly-like interface for searching logs, tool runs (useful in tuning a custom local MoE drafter) and full session suspend, stop, detach, and search. It also does single MCP tool installs for all agents. Nemesis also supports dynamic port exposure to the host metal, for testing agent builds inside their containers. Hyperia has a lot of extra features as well that I have found personally useful: - Sticky notes (search too) - addressable panes in addressable tabs, tabs in windows, multiple windows - full ACLs across panes, notes, tabs, windows - Poke-a-pane to keep an agent going (any agent, not just CC which has a timer function) - webpanes with markdown extraction, JavaScript injection - directory pickers for people who find cd'ing to things confusing or those weary of typing nearly the same directory path over and over again in new terminals (not perfect, but I'm iterating on it) - a built in agent loop (in the Rust sidecar) that allows using local models for tool calls (needs a trained drafter to make it viable) or using a local model for token maxxing (compresses reads of panes by frontier models) - pane splits down/up/left/right and quick layouts. As for whether it was "vibe coded" or not, or Herdr for that matter, I don't think that term is useful, other than for quick judgment. No, this is not a one-prompt project. I've spent 100s of hours on it, started out with Hyper, and did a crazy amount of planning on how to architect it. I have done systems architecture for a living before, and have a strong search background. People who hate on AI, and therfore projects done with AI, are threatened. Nothing more. That's why they shortcut with "AI slop" or "Vibecoded. Nope". That's just ignorance speaking from a standpoint of fear. Slop, whether AI or human, is an effort problem: https://deepbluedynamics.com/blog/ai-slop-effort-problem https://deepbluedynamics.com/blog/ai-slop-effort-problem. Looking at Herdr, it looks solid. Judge the product by it's outcomes, it's use, not whether or not AI wrote it or not. That's the moment we're in though, for now, so downvote or not. I don't care.

graypegg 4mo ago

> Popular with engineers from... (bunch of logos) > Individual engineers, not company endorsements. Bold haha. Maybe that's fine with the disclaimer, but feels like lawyer-bait.

obmelvin 4mo ago
I've seen a lot of companies list logos if just a single engineer or team is using the product.
- bdangubic 4mo ago
  I go from company to company just to be able to add their logo to stuff I use :)
- graypegg 4mo ago
  Fair haha. I'm no trademark lawyer, but I have to assume there's some wiggle room when you're not actively stealing their trademark and just referencing it... but still, the combined value of endorsements from Google/Nvidia/Amazon/ByteDance/Tencent/Alibaba/SalesForce/IBM etc has to be worth... a lot. That "not company endorsements" is rather load-bearing. I don't think I've seen anyone just say that, so maybe they're being a bit less bold haha. You might as well say Herdr runs on 3 billion devices, go all in! 16 billion devices! Every human on earth installed Herdr twice! (source: study amongst users of herdr, n=5)
  - obmelvin 4mo ago
    I get your point completely. I was (naively, I suppose) pretty surprised when I realized how low most people's threshold is to add a logo and claim a client/brand. I've seen VCs very much encourage this (and shadier) behavior. There's a line between hustling / being an entrepreneur and actively trying to mislead people... clearly we don't all see that line being in the same place (: edit: to be clear, I didn't mean to make such a broad statement about VCs. I'm sure plenty of people do this on their own
- anticorporate 4mo ago

emosenkis 4mo ago

I thought for a minute that they had built agent support for all terminals, which would render obsolete https://terminai.app https://terminai.app which I just released. Luckily for me, this is on the other end of the spectrum. Maybe there would even be a use case for running herdr as the AI CLI inside of terminai.

vadepaysa 4mo ago

I saw this trending on github yesterday and tried it and liking it so far. What I like: - familiar tmux like key binding (configurable) interface - comes with all the tmux advantages like detach, ssh etc - mouse - nice sidebar I prefer to manage my worktrees manually with a super simple script.

orliesaurus 4mo ago

I cant figure out how to make subagents work with herdr, tried to email the maintainer and got no reply back (yet) - has anyone figured it out?

nlh 4mo ago
Can you elaborate a bit on what you're trying to get to work?
- orliesaurus 3mo ago
  if I have claude code spawn sub-agents to do a task, shouldnt they show up in the sidebar?

r-w 4mo ago

"hurr durr"

pshirshov 4mo ago

I'm happy with tmux - can use it on my phone.

stronglikedan 4mo ago
sure, but you can use this on Windows!

robgough 4mo ago

I'm a big tmux fan, but admittedly I've found myself switching between a lot of sessions recently and wishing it was a little bit more mouse friendly. If you're a Mac user, and can forgive the shameless plug, you might find belfry.robgough.net useful. Connects to local and remote machines entirely through tmux, ssh and libghostty - populating the sidebar from tmux session info, and optionally adds a little Claude visibility in there for good measure. There's even an iOS/iPadOS version – though for the moment you'll need to build that yourself. Source is all on Github.

monk_grilla 4mo ago
> wishing it was a little bit more mouse friendly Can you explain what you struggle to do in tmux with the mouse? I'm using it as we speak and everything is clickable, panes are resizable, right clicking a windows give you a context menu... Not sure what else is missing?
- robgough 4mo ago
  Quickly switching between multiple sessions, and seeing which sessions are waiting for input. I generally run a session per project. Then within each session, a window for Claude, a window for running whatever dev server/logs, a window for neovim, and finally a plain terminal window for things like kicking off deploys etc.
  - monk_grilla 3mo ago
    C-b + s or C-b + w for switching sessions is most convenient for me, but if I am running multiple sessions I would usually just open a new tab in my emulator (iTerm2) which can be clicked or hotkeyed between. Anyway, I think multi-session management is a reasonable thing that this thing might improve over tmux, so fair enough.

bloody-crow 4mo ago

I've been using tmux historically and it eventually became too cumbersome since my typical workflow started being a lot more AI-agent heavy. I now run over 10 agents at the same time and they're all working on some multi-hour workstreams that I occasionally need to check in on or unblock. Tmux was not making this particularly easy and I would occasionally lose an agent or forget about it until much later only to realize it's been sitting idle waiting for me to approve something for a few days. I've tried Cmux, but it didn't do it for me, since the agent statuses were displayed on the workspaces and having multiple agents in the same workspace would sometime produce confusing results. I've been using Herdr since the start of the week and so far it's been the best in terms of visibility of what my agents are doing and which of them need attention. The only wart I've noticed so far is that the performance is not always great — sometimes I see the text appearing with a noticeable delay as I type it.

humam_alhusaini 4mo ago
Curious, are you using the 10 agents for personal projects or for work?
- bloody-crow 4mo ago
  Work.
  - teaearlgraycold 4mo ago
    What's an example of what the 10 agents would be doing in parallel? I've never used more than 2 in parallel before.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - y1zhou 4mo ago
      Some tasks could take a while, especially with /goal mode. At work we often have multiple agents running on different tasks, and each could spawn subagents that you may or may not want to track. With the herdr skill you can have subagents be managed via tabs or panes, which gives them more visibility and could also explode your terminal :)

kfsone 4mo ago

So it's like mosh + tmux?

teravor 4mo ago

the rise of the TUIs is an indictment of existing GUIs, you can technically create a GUI that has identical functionality to a TUI and then start adding features that a TUI can't match.

frumiousirc 3mo ago
Another way to interpret it is that a massive sample bias is governing your premise. Programmers are embracing LLMs to scratch their own itches and programmers tend to work in terminals (yes, many use IDEs) so they build to their own environments and HN readers and contributors tend to be programmers talking about programming things.

figomore 4mo ago

Does it support port forwarding like ssh -L ... ?

ruined 4mo ago

[flagged]

smashah 4mo ago

i tried giving tmux a go but there is a period where you're kinda going in and out of a tool, maybe not coming back to it for weeks at a time, this is why imo herdr is a really good tool - it doesn't punish you for not remembering the bindings, everything is clickable and as you go you can decide which bindings to learn and commit to instinct when required. I believe all TUIs should be like this from now on. This is also what makes opencode so great/sticky. Great work herdr team, I've only used it for a few days but I know I will be using this for a long time to come.

ihateolives 3mo ago
Zellij has context sensitive hint bar that shows possible key bindings. You can turn it off, but by default it's there.

stephen 4mo ago

I get why folks use tmux/herdr, but I already use i3wm/Hyprland for window/workspace management, and want to have "shared first class windows" instead of dual binds of "super-based binds for i3 windows ... oh wait control-a based binds for tmux panes". Has anyone got a tool/setup that is tmux-like but the remote terminals/panes are all local/native windows?

bitbang 4mo ago
Yeah... Herdr. Used in thin client mode connecting to remote server.
chaoxu 4mo ago
Something like this would be great. It seems what one really need is just persistent terminal session. So this thing probably can be built on top of zmc with a few scripts.
- chaoxu 4mo ago
  okey just did some investigation. ~/.config/herdr/herdr.sock JSON-RPC API so we can avoid herdr UI. In fact herdr's TUI is using it too. So basically you can write your own tool to make it work (vibe it with AI if you want)
joshstrange 3mo ago
ITerm2 has a really great tmux integration where you get native windows or tabs for tmux windows and the panes are really easy to interact with. Of course it’s macOS only but I use it on my MBP and ssh to attach to my tmux sessions from a secondary Mac (getting the same experience remotely) or my phone (without all the niceties, just normal tmux, but still usable)
- frollogaston 3mo ago
  Ditto, iTerm2 tmux integration is a game-changer. People at work had this whole custom-built solution to help run stuff remotely, and I couldn't even understand what that was for because I'm so used to just iTerm2+tmux.

Striving7340 4mo ago

The deceiving logo marquee is the most annoying thing of this software era. "Popular with people that follow these companies on social media" is the next step to this madness.

chaoxu 4mo ago

Herdr did a lot of things really well. It have a great landing page where you can see and interact, and that really made me try it, and a few of my friend was also captured and immediately understood what it is for. I basically do everything remote, never on my own machine. Once I tried it, I can never go back. It is so simple and worked exactly as I thought how it should work. I would say it is just a modern version of tmux but really thought about user experience of more novice users. For people who come from the mouse world, moving to this is quite seamless. Also, coming to the comments, I would think maybe `zellij` would also work well. Or use `zmc` and build something on top. `zmc` is great, as the then the tab/window management can be handled by the desktop or TUI, depend on what someone want to use.

fernando-ram 4mo ago

[flagged]

whinvik 4mo ago

I have created my own opinionated setup but this comment is not about that. I do think that there should be a protocol such that using these tools becomes more standardized. For example I know that cmux is trying to support a tmux based setup so it feels like tmux could be most of that protocol. There are a lot of tools like this popup and I really think making switching easier is the only way I will try a different tool.

faustlast 4mo ago

another example of people inventing something that Emacs already has.

meling 4mo ago

Does anyone know how this compares to Supacode (https://supacode.sh https://supacode.sh)? I just started using Supacode a few days ago and have been enjoying it so far; it is based on libghostty.

vianchen 3mo ago
Supacode is macOS only and is a terminal emulator itself. Herdr is cross-platform and is just a multiplexer. You can use it in any terminal emulator. If you want you can even run Herdr in Supacode

jwr 4mo ago

This looks very similar to what I do in Emacs, using ghostel, which also has the advantage of using libghostty for excellent quality terminal rendering.

joshstrange 3mo ago

I’ve been using tmux (with the wonderful iTerm2 integration) for almost a year now to manage agents as well as organize my workspaces. I initially wrote this off but looking closer I think I’m going to give a shot. My mobile experience is acceptable (Blink shell + tmux) but not ideal and the monitoring of agents is nice. Currently I rely on a hook+Pushover to alert me when my attention is needed which works but has not been without frustration.

manume 3mo ago

More options: https://agentmgmt.dev https://agentmgmt.dev (disclaimer: built by me)

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

iluvcommunism 3mo ago

[dead]

InvidFlower 3mo ago

I did try Herdr but found too many things I expected it to have and just didn't. Right now I've been switching between two different approaches for combined local and remote work. There's the more traditional tmux/zellij way. I have a tailscale and mosh and a script where I can say something like "cw api do-this-feature" and it'll go into the folder of my api, create a worktree, and fire up claude code to use it (and another tab with lazygit and delta so I can do side-by-size diffs). And modified tmux's defaults so the session & window names are more targeted. Then can have it in Ghostty locally or Moshi (https://getmoshi.app/ https://getmoshi.app/) on my phone. Moshi is basically a terminal for iOS but geared toward doing agentic stuff. Has a lot of shortcuts you can add for common commands of tmux, CC, can pinch to change font size, has a built-in diff tool, etc. Also has a small hook you can put in your agent so you get notifications on your phone. And it can directly open the particular tmux/zellij/herdr pane from that (has specific support for those three). So that approach is nice in that you get full access to the harnesses, with no worries that a wrapper has a bug or doesn't support some new feature. But it still doesn't flow as well for me as a "real" wrapper does. For the real wrapper approach, I started with Happy (https://happy.engineering/ https://happy.engineering/) and currently am using Happier (https://happier.dev/ https://happier.dev/). Unlike Moshi, these are open source and basically control the various harnesses and have their own UI. Also have a relay so tailscale isn't necessarily needed, along with encryption in such a way that the person owning the relay can't decrypt the sessions. Happier even has a desktop app. Right now I'm running the dev version of Happier from source on my own machine w/ tailscale, with the testflight version of the app. There's various rough-around-the-edges aspects (and they're currently in the middle of a re-write), but it is nice to have a real UI with tabs for all your sessions, can click in to expand tool calls, to start a new session just select the harness, folder, type a new worktree name, etc and it starts going. So I don't know. I like aspects of both of these and kind of depends on what I'm up to and my current mood. Nothing feels totally perfect yet IMO.

reddit_clone 3mo ago

I use cmux. Has anyone used both and offer some comparison?

ramnique 3mo ago

I've been using tmux for several years and I just tried this and I'm pleasantly surprised! I definitely see myself using this as my goto. Couple of questions: - Do you plan to support viewing file-diffs for the cwd? Currently I keep zed / vscode open on the side to view diffs. It would be great if we could fold those into herdr as well - Is there an easy way to reconfigure the prefix? For tmux i've been using ` for years now, so going back to ctrl+z is a bit of a struggle Great execution btw, congrats!

lofaszvanitt 3mo ago

Why is this a thing? Claude and other clis already implemented everything that average joes published under foss into their client. So why 12 terminal windows when the cli does it itself?

ptgamr 3mo ago

I've just added herdr support for TermRover at https://termrover.sh https://termrover.sh Tmux is still the default, but you can switch to herdr if you're a herdr fan.