Skills tmux

Remote-control tmux sessions for interactive CLIs by sending keystrokes and scraping pane output.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/openclaw/skills

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/openclaw/skills "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/brennerspear/tmux-controller" ~/.claude/skills/clawdbot-skills-tmux && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/brennerspear/tmux-controller/SKILL.md

source content

tmux Skill

Use tmux only when you need an interactive TTY. Prefer exec background mode for long-running, non-interactive tasks.

Default Server — No Custom Sockets

Always use the default tmux server. Do NOT use

-S

custom sockets. The user needs to

tmux attach

easily without knowing obscure socket paths.

Session Naming

Convention:

oc-${project}-${feature}

(e.g.

oc-knowhere-date-range-picker

oc-deck-auth-flow

)

```
oc-
```
prefix = OpenClaw-managed, avoids collision with user sessions
Easy to find:
```
tmux ls | grep oc-
```

Quickstart

SESSION=oc-myproject-feature

tmux new-session -d -s "$SESSION" -c ~/projects/myproject
tmux send-keys -t "$SESSION" 'claude --dangerously-skip-permissions' Enter
tmux capture-pane -p -J -t "$SESSION" -S -200

After starting a session, tell the user:

To monitor: tmux attach -t $SESSION

Targeting panes and naming

Target format:
```
session:window.pane
```
(defaults to
```
:0.0
```
).
Keep names short; avoid spaces.
Inspect:
```
tmux list-sessions
```
,
```
tmux list-panes -a
```
.

Sending input safely

Prefer literal sends:
```
tmux send-keys -t target -l -- "$cmd"
```
.
Control keys:
```
tmux send-keys -t target C-c
```
.
For interactive TUI apps like Claude Code/Codex, do not append
```
Enter
```
in the same
```
send-keys
```
. These apps may treat a fast text+Enter sequence as paste/multi-line input and not submit. Send text and
```
Enter
```
as separate commands with a small delay:

tmux send-keys -t target -l -- "$cmd" && sleep 0.1 && tmux send-keys -t target Enter

Watching output

Capture recent history:

tmux capture-pane -p -J -t target -S -200

Attaching is OK; detach with
```
Ctrl+b d
```
.

Spawning processes

For python REPLs, set
```
PYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1
```
(non-basic REPL breaks send-keys flows).

Orchestrating Coding Agents (Codex, Claude Code)

tmux excels at running multiple coding agents in parallel:

# Create sessions in different worktrees
tmux new-session -d -s oc-project-fix1 -c ~/projects/project-fix1
tmux new-session -d -s oc-project-fix2 -c ~/projects/project-fix2

# Launch agents
tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 'claude --dangerously-skip-permissions' Enter
tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix2 'codex --full-auto' Enter

# Send a prompt (text + Enter separated by delay)
tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 -l -- "Fix the date picker styling." && sleep 0.1 && tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 Enter

# Poll for completion (check if shell prompt returned)
for sess in oc-project-fix1 oc-project-fix2; do
  if tmux capture-pane -p -t "$sess" -S -3 | grep -q "❯"; then
    echo "$sess: DONE"
  else
    echo "$sess: Running..."
  fi
done

# Get full output
tmux capture-pane -p -t oc-project-fix1 -S -500

Tips:

Use separate git worktrees for parallel fixes (no branch conflicts)
```
bun install
```
/
```
pnpm install
```
first before running agents in fresh clones
Check for shell prompt (
```
❯
```
or
```
$
```
) to detect completion
Codex needs
```
--yolo
```
or
```
--full-auto
```
for non-interactive fixes

Cleanup

Kill a session:
```
tmux kill-session -t "$SESSION"
```
.

Kill all OpenClaw sessions:

tmux ls -F '#{session_name}' | grep '^oc-' | xargs -n1 tmux kill-session -t