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 "$T/skills/brennerspear/tmux-remote-control" ~/.claude/skills/clawdbot-skills-tmux-66d043 && rm -rf "$T"
manifest:
skills/brennerspear/tmux-remote-control/SKILL.mdsource 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)
prefix = OpenClaw-managed, avoids collision with user sessionsoc-- 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 $SESSION
Targeting panes and naming
- Target format:
(defaults tosession:window.pane
).:0.0 - Keep names short; avoid spaces.
- Inspect:
,tmux list-sessions
.tmux list-panes -a
Sending input safely
- Prefer literal sends:
.tmux send-keys -t target -l -- "$cmd" - Control keys:
.tmux send-keys -t target C-c - For interactive TUI apps like Claude Code/Codex, do not append
in the sameEnter
. These apps may treat a fast text+Enter sequence as paste/multi-line input and not submit. Send text andsend-keys
as separate commands with a small delay:Enter
tmux send-keys -t target -l -- "$cmd" && sleep 0.1 && tmux send-keys -t target Enter
Watching output
- Capture recent history:
.tmux capture-pane -p -J -t target -S -200 - Attaching is OK; detach with
.Ctrl+b d
Spawning processes
- For python REPLs, set
(non-basic REPL breaks send-keys flows).PYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1
Orchestrating Coding Agents (Codex, Claude Code)
tmux excels at running multiple coding agents in parallel:
# Create sessions in different worktrees tmux new-session -d -s oc-project-fix1 -c ~/projects/project-fix1 tmux new-session -d -s oc-project-fix2 -c ~/projects/project-fix2 # Launch agents tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 'claude --dangerously-skip-permissions' Enter tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix2 'codex --full-auto' Enter # Send a prompt (text + Enter separated by delay) tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 -l -- "Fix the date picker styling." && sleep 0.1 && tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 Enter # Poll for completion (check if shell prompt returned) for sess in oc-project-fix1 oc-project-fix2; do if tmux capture-pane -p -t "$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
first before running agents in fresh clonespnpm install- Check for shell prompt (
or❯
) to detect completion$ - Codex needs
or--yolo
for non-interactive fixes--full-auto
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