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There seem to be a lot of these sorts of tools popping up but it’s not clear to me the added value they bring in over using plain tmux (or any other “normal” se

There seem to be a lot of these sorts of tools popping up but it’s not clear to me the added value they bring in over using plain tmux (or any other “normal” session multiplexer). Can someone who uses one of these agent-specific multiplexers share their experience and reasoning for reaching for / building these? What makes this better than a normal multiplexer? I am asking in earnest; I just don’t understand but I want to.

dhruvmittal 2mo ago
I've been using herdr for a couple of weeks. The only real advantage is that it makes the agent status glanceable in the sidebar, which can be nice if you don't want to cycle through your tmux panes to check if something's blocked or complete. Other than that, it's kind of just tmux (which is nice, I like tmux).
- andai 2mo ago
  I added a hook to Claude and Codex where they play a frog ribbit sound when they're done cooking. I should probably download different types of frog sounds for different agents though.
- 0x008 2mo ago
  I don’t get this argument that’s soooo easy for add a window marker to tmux windows that updates with a Claude hook.
  - yoanwaidev 2mo ago
    [dead]
ymir_e 2mo ago
I've tested out just about every tool like this, and ended up coding my own, it is really minimal though. The primary reason people reach for these tools are two to three reasons: 1. Tmux does not natively show agent statuses of agents / notify you when one needs input. Helpful when you have a huge list of small things to fix: I just spin up N agents in parallel to handle all of them, then I go over and review. 2. Tmux does not handle worktree handling. If you wanna make changes in parallel you cannot have two agents make db migrations at the same time. The way to solve for this is to have them work on two different worktrees with separate environments, ports etc. 3. Tmux tree view is not super beautiful, especially for viewing agents. I built this as a tmux plugin since I don't really want to opt-out of tmux as a whole, especially since I like my keybindings there. https://github.com/Ymirke/tmux-agent-switcher https://github.com/Ymirke/tmux-agent-switcher
- petesergeant 2mo ago
  This looks nice, but I think a screenshot or three in the README would help bring it to life better
  - ymir_e 2mo ago
    Great input. Added a screenshot to the readme: https://github.com/Ymirke/tmux-agent-switcher https://github.com/Ymirke/tmux-agent-switcher
- Arthurian 2mo ago
  In your experience using your plugin (and the other tools that do something similar like herdr), does it make doing a larger volume of work feel more manageable? In my experience thus far, surfacing/managing session state is only part of the issue, context switching between them is another entirely and feels like the real productivity bottleneck for me
  - ymir_e 2mo ago
    You're spot on here. If you're truly multi-tasking with this type of setup it feels more like "tiktok coding", "brainrot coding", or any other term that should be used for it. I'm pretty sure we're moving away from it, the agent you interact with via voice or typing will go to a higher and higher abstraction level, and you won't have to effectively micro-manage them.
    - ThomasSchijf 2mo ago
      [flagged]
- ixtli 2mo ago
  Please continue developing this I’m sick of all these one-offs that escape the mature good tooling we already have.
- apitman 2mo ago
  > The way to solve for this is to have them work on two different worktrees with separate environments, ports What are you using for the environment part? Containers?
skinfaxi 2mo ago
My main reason for herdr over tmux is the priority queue of agents requiring intervention.
kstenerud 2mo ago
I built yoloAI, which is a sandboxer so it uses tmux to keep the agent alive inside. Since I can just reattach to them or use VS code tunnels, I don't really have a need for a multiplexer, though.
nico 2mo ago
I’ve been using herdr lately and before that I was using zellij and before that tmux and before that gnu screen For me the main advantage of herdr is that when I have the codex integration activated, herdr will keep track of the codex session ids and automatically restore them after restart With the other multiplexers I had to create a separate tool that would save/restore layout/tabs/panes/session ids. And I had to run it manually. With herdr it just works, almost out of the box Oh, it’s also very nice that you can create groups of tabs, so it’s easier to organize if you have more than 3-4 terminal sessions open (I usually keep at least 3 tabs, each split into an agent pane and a zsh pane) And lastly, mouse scroll support is a lot better. I’ve had many issues with scrolling codex’s output. tmux and zellij’s scrolling wouldn’t play nicely with codex’s output, but herdr seems to work very well
- tiahura 2mo ago
  herdr seems more stable than psmux/tmux for windows.
- irfn 2mo ago
  yeah herdr has completely replaced my tmux usage
yoanwaidev 2mo ago
[dead]
taude 2mo ago
- I get OS level notifications when the agent is ready. - I don't need to use TMUX's wonky keyboard shortcuts - I moved off of TMUX anyway, when ssh-ing into remote servers became 'not a thing' - automatic coding session management, like auto resume, layout manamgement, etc. out of the box, without setting up TMUX, which could be a wormhole for some, by the time you fix mouse scrolling, cut/paste, etc... I'm currently using CMUX, and been pretty happy with it it at this time, but loving the evolution of all these tools
Marlinski 2mo ago
https://bower.sh/you-might-not-need-tmux https://bower.sh/you-might-not-need-tmux
kaydub 2mo ago
Most of the AI tools people are building have little to zero value. If you're making valuable tools, anthropic, openai, or one of the other big players in the space will hire you/buy you out and then they will release the tool themselves. I'm getting really tired of everyone doing their own special rain dances and then acting like they made it rain.
renezander030 2mo ago
[flagged]
hboon 2mo ago
I build one, an inhouse one for myself. I think it's a worth doing and see if it works for you. Especially for someone who works independently most of the time. I get it to follow and support my working style, workflow and idiosyncrasies. I started out because I wanted something that queues my work serially for each project so I can work on main and I can type what I want to do in it instead of writing to an ever-growing TODO list. I then make it show icons and indicators for blockers, ready sessions that need attention, TODO lists that include notifications and actions (because it's so easy to miss things while working on/with many sessions). Shows costs (loop coordinator and non-LC costs, by day, etc) so I can optimize costs. It's fun, a learning experience and it's more productive. With excellent SOTA and coding agents now, we should be building tools to improve our work even more than before. Try it.

dhruvmittal 2mo ago

I've been using herdr for a couple of weeks. The only real advantage is that it makes the agent status glanceable in the sidebar, which can be nice if you don't want to cycle through your tmux panes to check if something's blocked or complete. Other than that, it's kind of just tmux (which is nice, I like tmux).

andai 2mo ago
I added a hook to Claude and Codex where they play a frog ribbit sound when they're done cooking. I should probably download different types of frog sounds for different agents though.
0x008 2mo ago
I don’t get this argument that’s soooo easy for add a window marker to tmux windows that updates with a Claude hook.
- yoanwaidev 2mo ago
  [dead]

ymir_e 2mo ago

I've tested out just about every tool like this, and ended up coding my own, it is really minimal though. The primary reason people reach for these tools are two to three reasons: 1. Tmux does not natively show agent statuses of agents / notify you when one needs input. Helpful when you have a huge list of small things to fix: I just spin up N agents in parallel to handle all of them, then I go over and review. 2. Tmux does not handle worktree handling. If you wanna make changes in parallel you cannot have two agents make db migrations at the same time. The way to solve for this is to have them work on two different worktrees with separate environments, ports etc. 3. Tmux tree view is not super beautiful, especially for viewing agents. I built this as a tmux plugin since I don't really want to opt-out of tmux as a whole, especially since I like my keybindings there. https://github.com/Ymirke/tmux-agent-switcher https://github.com/Ymirke/tmux-agent-switcher

petesergeant 2mo ago
This looks nice, but I think a screenshot or three in the README would help bring it to life better
- ymir_e 2mo ago
  Great input. Added a screenshot to the readme: https://github.com/Ymirke/tmux-agent-switcher https://github.com/Ymirke/tmux-agent-switcher
Arthurian 2mo ago
In your experience using your plugin (and the other tools that do something similar like herdr), does it make doing a larger volume of work feel more manageable? In my experience thus far, surfacing/managing session state is only part of the issue, context switching between them is another entirely and feels like the real productivity bottleneck for me
- ymir_e 2mo ago
  You're spot on here. If you're truly multi-tasking with this type of setup it feels more like "tiktok coding", "brainrot coding", or any other term that should be used for it. I'm pretty sure we're moving away from it, the agent you interact with via voice or typing will go to a higher and higher abstraction level, and you won't have to effectively micro-manage them.
  - ThomasSchijf 2mo ago
    [flagged]
ixtli 2mo ago
Please continue developing this I’m sick of all these one-offs that escape the mature good tooling we already have.
apitman 2mo ago
> The way to solve for this is to have them work on two different worktrees with separate environments, ports What are you using for the environment part? Containers?

skinfaxi 2mo ago

My main reason for herdr over tmux is the priority queue of agents requiring intervention.

kstenerud 2mo ago

I built yoloAI, which is a sandboxer so it uses tmux to keep the agent alive inside. Since I can just reattach to them or use VS code tunnels, I don't really have a need for a multiplexer, though.

nico 2mo ago

I’ve been using herdr lately and before that I was using zellij and before that tmux and before that gnu screen For me the main advantage of herdr is that when I have the codex integration activated, herdr will keep track of the codex session ids and automatically restore them after restart With the other multiplexers I had to create a separate tool that would save/restore layout/tabs/panes/session ids. And I had to run it manually. With herdr it just works, almost out of the box Oh, it’s also very nice that you can create groups of tabs, so it’s easier to organize if you have more than 3-4 terminal sessions open (I usually keep at least 3 tabs, each split into an agent pane and a zsh pane) And lastly, mouse scroll support is a lot better. I’ve had many issues with scrolling codex’s output. tmux and zellij’s scrolling wouldn’t play nicely with codex’s output, but herdr seems to work very well

tiahura 2mo ago
herdr seems more stable than psmux/tmux for windows.
irfn 2mo ago
yeah herdr has completely replaced my tmux usage

yoanwaidev 2mo ago

[dead]

taude 2mo ago

- I get OS level notifications when the agent is ready. - I don't need to use TMUX's wonky keyboard shortcuts - I moved off of TMUX anyway, when ssh-ing into remote servers became 'not a thing' - automatic coding session management, like auto resume, layout manamgement, etc. out of the box, without setting up TMUX, which could be a wormhole for some, by the time you fix mouse scrolling, cut/paste, etc... I'm currently using CMUX, and been pretty happy with it it at this time, but loving the evolution of all these tools

Marlinski 2mo ago

https://bower.sh/you-might-not-need-tmux https://bower.sh/you-might-not-need-tmux

kaydub 2mo ago

Most of the AI tools people are building have little to zero value. If you're making valuable tools, anthropic, openai, or one of the other big players in the space will hire you/buy you out and then they will release the tool themselves. I'm getting really tired of everyone doing their own special rain dances and then acting like they made it rain.

renezander030 2mo ago

[flagged]

hboon 2mo ago

I build one, an inhouse one for myself. I think it's a worth doing and see if it works for you. Especially for someone who works independently most of the time. I get it to follow and support my working style, workflow and idiosyncrasies. I started out because I wanted something that queues my work serially for each project so I can work on main and I can type what I want to do in it instead of writing to an ever-growing TODO list. I then make it show icons and indicators for blockers, ready sessions that need attention, TODO lists that include notifications and actions (because it's so easy to miss things while working on/with many sessions). Shows costs (loop coordinator and non-LC costs, by day, etc) so I can optimize costs. It's fun, a learning experience and it's more productive. With excellent SOTA and coding agents now, we should be building tools to improve our work even more than before. Try it.