Agent skill · software engineering · steipete
tmux
Control tmux sessions/panes for interactive CLIs: list, capture output, send keys, paste text, monitor prompts.
Why this skill is useful
Adds specific tmux commands and scripts for session management and interaction that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires tmux installed locally. About 1k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 385,400 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
tmux Use for existing interactive tmux sessions. For one-shot commands, use normal shell. For new non-interactive background jobs, use background execution. Basics Target format: session:window.pane, e.g. shared:0.0. Send input Literal text, then Enter: Special keys: Use -l -- for arbitrary text. Split text and Enter to avoid paste/newline surprises. Sessions Prompt checks Approve/select only when the prompt is understood: Helpers scripts/find-sessions.sh: discover sessions. scripts/wait-for-text.sh: wait until captured pane contents contain text. wait-for-text.sh searches echoed input and scrollback as well as process output. For command completion, use a unique marker whose full text is split across arguments in the command sent to tmux: The echoed command never contains the complete marker, and the nonce prevents an older completion line from matching. Notes capture-pane -p prints to stdout for scripts. -S - captures full scrollback. tmux sessions persist across SSH disconnects.
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills steipete/tmux