Track all your AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, ...) in tmux and jump to the one that needs you

❓ Why?

When running multiple AI coding agent sessions across tmux panes, it's hard to keep track of which session is idle, which is waiting for permission, and which pane to switch to. ccmux solves this with a background daemon that monitors session activity and an interactive TUI that shows live session states at a glance.

It works with your existing tmux workflow. You don't change how you launch or run your agents; ccmux discovers what's already running in your panes, so as long as you're in tmux with a supported agent, it just works.

Built-in support for: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Pi, Gemini CLI, plus custom agent definitions via config.

✨ Features

• 🎯 Live Session States: Every agent tracked as idle, working, or waiting (permission / plan approval / question), flagged the moment one needs you
• 🧩 Multi-Agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Pi, Gemini CLI, plus custom agents via config
• 🔄 Real-Time: Background daemon streams state changes instantly over SSE, no polling, no refresh
• 👁️ Live Preview: Split-pane view of the selected session's pane content
• ⚡ Act in Place: Tab into the preview to approve, answer, or type, keys go straight to that pane
• 📊 Sidebar Mode: Compact always-visible session rail docked beside your working panes
• 🔍 Fuzzy Search: Find sessions by project, branch, path, last prompt, or pane content
• 📂 Session Grouping: Collapsible project groups with reordering and pinning
• 🌿 Git & PR Aware: Branch and worktree detection, open PRs with live CI and review status
• 🤖 Background Agents & Subagents: Claude Code background agents get rows too; nested Task agent waiting states surface
• 🔁 Session Control: Spawn, kill, and restart sessions from the TUI; ccmux invoke for scripted one-shot agent turns
• ⌨️ Keyboard-First, Mouse-Friendly: Vim keys and number jumps, plus click-to-switch and right-click context actions

📦 Installation

Prerequisites

• tmux with active sessions running AI coding agents

Homebrew

brew install epilande/tap/ccmux
ccmux setup

From Source

Requires Bun.

git clone https://github.com/epilande/ccmux.git
cd ccmux
bun install
bun link
ccmux setup

ccmux setup installs agent hooks for authoritative session matching. ccmux works without it, but it's recommended; see Session Matching with Hooks. Bare ccmux setup only configures agents whose executable is found on PATH; use ccmux setup --agent <name> to install for a specific agent even if it isn't detected.

🚀 Quick Start

1. Start your AI coding sessions in tmux panes as usual
2. Launch the picker:
   copy

   ccmux
   

3. Navigate with j/k, press Enter to switch to a session

[!TIP] Bind a tmux key so you can pop ccmux open from anywhere (add to ~/.tmux.conf):

copy

# Prefix + C-p: open ccmux in a centered popup
bind-key C-p display-popup -E -w 80% -h 75% "ccmux"

# Or skip the prefix entirely (Alt+p from any pane)
bind-key -n M-p display-popup -E -w 80% -h 75% "ccmux"

The picker exits after you select a session, so the popup closes itself and drops you straight into that pane. (display-popup requires tmux 3.2+.)

🎮 Usage

CLI Commands

The daemon starts automatically the first time you run a ccmux command (picker, show, invoke, etc.). It runs on 127.0.0.1:2269 and provides both a REST API and SSE event stream.

Preview Pane

Press P to split the picker and preview the highlighted session's live pane content side by side. Press Tab to focus the preview and act in place: your keystrokes go straight to that agent's pane, so you can approve a permission, answer a question, or type a follow-up without ever leaving ccmux.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7e0d42b3-4e7b-43b8-8d06-72a2d69dd694

Sidebar Mode

A compact, always-visible session list that lives alongside your working panes. No preview panel, no footer, just status icons and project names.

ccmux sidebar --toggle                  # Toggle sidebars in all tmux windows
ccmux sidebar --toggle --width 40       # Custom width (default: 30)
ccmux sidebar --toggle --position right # Right side (default: left)
ccmux sidebar --resize --width 30       # Snap every existing sidebar pane to <width>

The smart toggle fills gaps when some windows are missing sidebars, and kills all sidebars when every window already has one. New windows automatically get a sidebar, and sidebars snap back to their configured width when a window is resized.

Configure defaults so --toggle uses your preferred layout:

ccmux config set sidebar.width 40
ccmux config set sidebar.position right

Suggested tmux keybinding (add to ~/.tmux.conf):

bind-key S run-shell "ccmux sidebar --toggle"

Spawning Sessions

Launch new agent sessions directly from the CLI:

ccmux spawn                          # Spawn claude (default) in a new tmux window
ccmux spawn codex                    # Spawn a specific agent
ccmux spawn --split                  # Split current pane instead of new window
ccmux spawn --detach                 # Don't switch to the new pane
ccmux spawn --cwd ~/proj             # Set working directory
ccmux spawn --resume <id>            # Resume an existing session
ccmux spawn --prompt "fix the tests" # Send an initial prompt

Programmatic Invocation

ccmux invoke runs a single agent turn and writes the response to stdout, so you can use real agents in shell pipelines and scripts. See docs/invoke.md for the full reference.

ccmux invoke claude "say hi in one word"
echo "what is 2 + 2" | ccmux invoke claude
git diff main | ccmux invoke claude "Review this diff"

Claude runs interactively in a dedicated tmux session and returns clean text parsed from the transcript JSONL. Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Pi, and Gemini run as non-interactive subprocesses (codex exec -o, cursor-agent --print, opencode run --format json, pi -p, gemini -p) and return the agent's clean response text.

For orchestration, name an invocation with --id <id>, then use ccmux invoke list, ccmux invoke cancel <id>, and ccmux invoke result <id> to watch, cancel, or read its full captured output by that id. See docs/invoke.md for the fire-and-poll reference.

Dispatch Skill

This repo ships a dispatch Agent Skill that teaches your coding agent to orchestrate other agents through ccmux invoke (firing, fan-out, joining, cancelling, and reading worker output). For Claude Code it installs as a plugin (this repo doubles as a plugin marketplace):

/plugin marketplace add epilande/ccmux
/plugin install ccmux@ccmux

Other skills-capable agents (Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, and others) can use the same skill by copying it into their skills directory. The skill is additive glue for the ccmux CLI, which must be installed and on your PATH. See plugins/ccmux/README.md for details.

⌨️ Keyboard Controls

⚙️ Configuration

Preferences are stored in ~/.config/ccmux/ccmux.json and can be managed with:

ccmux config set <key> <value>
ccmux config get <key>
ccmux config list

📊 Column Configuration

Each session item has up to two rows (row1, row2), and each row has a left and right side. Each side is a comma-separated list of field entries. An entry is either <field> (use the field's default mode) or <field>:<mode> (override the mode).

ccmux config set columns.row1.left  "index,status:icon,project"
ccmux config set columns.row1.right "agent:short,pane,time"
ccmux config set columns.row2.left  "prompt"
ccmux config set columns.row2.right "branch"

Pass an empty string to clear a side: ccmux config set columns.row2.left "".

Defaults: row1.left is index, status, project (status badge widens icon→short→full as the terminal grows). row1.right cascades by breakpoint: just pane below xs, then agent:short, pane at xs, agent:short, pane, time at sm, and agent:full, version, pane, time at md+. The prompt and pr cells are configured on row2, but promptDisplay (default inline, cycled live by p) controls how they render: inline flattens them onto row1 so each session stays a single line, row2 gives the prompt its own line with pr at the right edge, and off hides both. Sessions with no prompt stay single-line in inline mode; in row2 mode the second line still appears when another row-2 field (such as an open PR) has data.

Sidebar defaults differ to fit the narrow rail: row1 is status, project with pr:short, agent:short on the right (PR stays visible even with the prompt hidden), and row2 is prompt / time (a lone time never earns the row; it rides along when some other field has data). The 30-col rail has no room to inline, so the sidebar always uses the two-row layout (inline behaves like row2). Override these under the sidebar.columns key in ~/.config/ccmux/ccmux.json (e.g. "sidebar": { "columns": { "row2": { "left": ["pane"] } } } to bring the pane target back).

The CLI's comma-separated form sets one mode per entry. To vary the layout by terminal width (responsive cascade), edit ~/.config/ccmux/ccmux.json directly and use the default/xs/sm/md/lg keys on either a row side (whole array) or an entry's mode.

📐 Breakpoints

Named breakpoints control when responsive column layouts activate. A breakpoint value applies from that terminal width upward until a larger breakpoint overrides it.

ccmux config set breakpoints.sm 55
ccmux config set breakpoints.lg 120

🎨 Theme

The TUI ships 14 built-in palettes across six families, resolved once at launch (no in-TUI toggle).

ccmux config themes                       # list built-ins, mark the active one
ccmux config set theme tokyo-night        # switch theme

For per-key tweaks, set theme to an object in ~/.config/ccmux/ccmux.json: a built-in base plus colors (the 14 semantic keys) and/or ansi (the 16 terminal colors used to render the preview), deep-merged over the base.

{
  "theme": {
    "base": "catppuccin-mocha",
    "colors": { "red": "#ff5555" },
    "ansi": { "brightBlack": "#585b70" }
  }
}

An unknown base name falls back to the default theme; an invalid hex value or unknown override key is dropped and the base value is kept. Each emits a warning. Run ccmux config themes to inspect any problems with the current config.

[!NOTE] ccmux paints no background fill, so theme colors sit on your terminal's own background. The light palettes (catppuccin-latte, tokyo-night-day, gruvbox-light, rose-pine-dawn) assume a light terminal; pair them with a light background. Every other palette assumes a dark one.

🔗 Session Matching with Hooks

For reliable session-to-pane mapping (especially with multiple sessions of the same agent in the same project), install hooks:

ccmux setup                    # Install hooks for every supported agent found on PATH
ccmux setup --agent codex      # Limit to a single agent (installs even if not on PATH)
ccmux setup --status           # Report install state without writing
ccmux setup --uninstall        # Remove hooks

Hooks write PID marker files under ~/.config/ccmux/session-pids/ whenever a session starts, a turn completes, or the agent asks the user to approve a tool. The daemon picks up the markers in real time via a filesystem watcher. See docs/architecture.md#hook-lifecycle for the full flow (marker writes, chokidar dispatch, per-agent correlation).

Gemini CLI is tracked through process detection and terminal pattern matching, so it needs no setup.

Claude Code

Uses Claude's native hooks in ~/.claude/settings.json with three scripts under ~/.claude/hooks/:

• ccmux-session-start.sh: writes the marker on session create/resume
• ccmux-session-end.sh: removes the marker
• ccmux-state-notify.sh: updates state on idle_prompt / permission_prompt

Codex CLI

Uses Codex's native hooks (~/.codex/hooks.json plus the codex hooks feature flag in ~/.codex/config.toml, which is [features] codex_hooks = true pre-0.124 and [features] hooks = true on 0.124+; ccmux recognizes either) with three scripts under ~/.codex/hooks/:

• ccmux-session-start.sh: writes the marker when a Codex session starts
• ccmux-stop.sh: refreshes the marker at the end of every turn
• ccmux-permission-request.sh: marks the session as waiting_permission when the user is asked to approve a tool

Tool-approval detection (PermissionRequest) needs Codex >= 0.122.

Cursor CLI

Uses Cursor's native hooks (~/.cursor/hooks.json) with four scripts under ~/.cursor/hooks/:

• ccmux-session-start.sh: writes the marker on fresh chat launch
• ccmux-session-end.sh: unlinks the marker when the chat ends
• ccmux-before-submit-prompt.sh: flips state to working and records the last prompt (1 KB cap)
• ccmux-stop.sh: refreshes state back to idle at turn completion

Requires cursor-agent >= 2026.1.16 (when the hooks feature landed).

OpenCode

Uses OpenCode's plugin system rather than shell hooks. ccmux setup --agent opencode drops a single auto-discovered JS plugin at ~/.config/opencode/plugin/ccmux.js (honors $XDG_CONFIG_HOME). The plugin subscribes to OpenCode's in-process event bus and writes a marker for every session on the server:

• session.created / session.updated: marker with directory + title
• session.status (busy/retry/idle): refreshes state to working or idle
• message.updated / message.part.updated: captures the user's last prompt (1 KB cap) into the marker (parity with Claude/Codex/Cursor)
• permission.asked / permission.replied: flips state to waiting_permission with the pending tool, clears back to working on reply
• session.deleted: unlinks the marker

Because one OpenCode server can host many sessions, the daemon folds all markers sharing a server PID into the single ccmux Session for the tmux pane that hosts the server. Status is worst-of (waiting > working > idle); cwd and nativeSessionId come from the newest-activity marker, while pendingTool and the attention indicator come from the newest-waiting marker.

Pi

Uses Pi's extension system rather than shell hooks. ccmux setup --agent pi drops a single auto-discovered JS extension at ~/.pi/agent/extensions/ccmux.js. The extension subscribes to Pi's lifecycle events and writes one marker per session:

• session_start: marker with the session id, transcript path, and cwd (Pi fires this at launch, so the marker carries full identity immediately)
• before_agent_start: captures the user's last prompt (1 KB cap)
• agent_start / agent_end: flips state to working / idle (these bracket one full user prompt, so the row never flickers mid-response the way per-turn events would)
• session_shutdown: unlinks the marker

Pi runs one session per process, so there's no server-style aggregation; the daemon correlates the marker's PID to its tmux pane via process ancestry and links nativeSessionId.

Matching priority (with hooks installed)

1. Marker file (authoritative): Direct PID/TTY/session-id/transcript from the hook, re-verified on every scan so a wrong binding heals itself
2. Process start time: For panes markers don't claim, ccmux correlates session timestamps with agent process start times, matching each same-directory group as a whole within a 10-minute tolerance. When two candidates are too close to call, the session is left unbound rather than guessed.

Without hooks, the daemon does not use historical session IDs to claim pane ownership. It creates pane-scoped sessions from live process + tmux discovery, then attaches agent log metadata only when it can safely tie a log to the running process.

🧩 Custom Agents

The built-in agents are the happy path: they ship with hook integration for authoritative session matching. If you run an agent ccmux doesn't support out of the box, you can teach it one in ~/.config/ccmux/ccmux.json. Custom agents fall back to process matching plus terminal pattern scanning (no hooks), so detection is less precise than a built-in, but it gets unsupported agents onto the board.

{
  "agents": {
    "myagent": {
      "processMatch": "myagent",
      "terminalRules": [
        {
          "matchAny": ["thinking...", "esc to interrupt"],
          "status": "working"
        },
        {
          "matchAll": ["approve?", "[y/n]"],
          "status": "waiting",
          "attentionType": "permission",
          "pendingTool": "Command"
        }
      ],
      "resumeCommand": "myagent resume {id}"
    }
  }
}

🏗️ Architecture

ccmux has three layers: agents running in tmux panes, a background daemon that observes them, and clients (TUI + CLI utilities) that consume daemon state over HTTP/SSE.

The daemon merges three signals into one session state: log parsing for agents that write JSONL transcripts, terminal pattern matching for agents that don't, and PID marker files written by hook adapters for authoritative session-to-pane mapping. It exposes a local HTTP API with SSE streaming on port 2269. The TUI connects as an SSE client and renders state reactively using Solid.js via the @opentui/solid framework.

For deeper internals (status detection cascade, session-to-pane binding, hook event lifecycle, PR enrichment, background agents, code map), see docs/architecture.md. Per-agent hook quirks and the agent-owned files ccmux reads are in docs/agent-adapters.md.

🔧 Development

bun install              # Install dependencies
bun run dev              # Run with --watch
bun run typecheck        # Type check
bun test                 # Run tests
bun run build            # Bundle to dist/index.js (consumed by the launcher)

Performance Profiling

Set CCMUX_PERF=1 to enable performance instrumentation:

CCMUX_PERF=1 ccmux picker 2>/tmp/ccmux-perf.log

This outputs a startup waterfall and periodic runtime stats (FPS, memo recomputes, active timers) to stderr.

📄 License

MIT