Remote-control tmux sessions for interactive CLIs by sending keystrokes and scraping pane output.
Use tmux only when you need an interactive TTY. Prefer exec background mode for long-running, non-interactive tasks.
Always use the default tmux server. Do NOT use -S custom sockets. The user needs to tmux attach easily without knowing obscure socket paths.
Convention: oc-${project}-${feature} (e.g. oc-knowhere-date-range-picker, oc-deck-auth-flow)
oc- prefix = OpenClaw-managed, avoids collision with user sessionstmux ls | grep oc-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 $SESSION
session:window.pane (defaults to :0.0).tmux list-sessions, tmux list-panes -a.tmux send-keys -t target -l -- "$cmd".tmux send-keys -t target C-c.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 -- "$cmd" && sleep 0.1 && tmux send-keys -t target Enter
tmux capture-pane -p -J -t target -S -200.Ctrl+b d.PYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1 (non-basic REPL breaks send-keys flows).tmux excels at running multiple coding agents in parallel:
# Create sessions in different worktrees
tmux new-session -d -s oc-project-fix1 -c ~/projects/project-fix1
tmux new-session -d -s oc-project-fix2 -c ~/projects/project-fix2
# Launch agents
tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 'claude --dangerously-skip-permissions' Enter
tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix2 'codex --full-auto' Enter
# Send a prompt (text + Enter separated by delay)
tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 -l -- "Fix the date picker styling." && sleep 0.1 && tmux send-keys -t oc-project-fix1 Enter
# Poll for completion (check if shell prompt returned)
for sess in oc-project-fix1 oc-project-fix2; do
if tmux capture-pane -p -t "$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:
bun install / pnpm install first before running agents in fresh clones❯ or $) to detect completion--yolo or --full-auto for non-interactive fixestmux kill-session -t "$SESSION".tmux ls -F '#{session_name}' | grep '^oc-' | xargs -n1 tmux kill-session -t.