tmuxy

The missing tmux GUI you didn't know you needed.

tmux is the best tool for agent-driven development, but it lacks a good UX. tmuxy fixes that by adding an interface layer with a smoother UX on top of tmux, accessible from anywhere.

• Agent-friendly: AI agents already love tmux. Why create a new tool? Instead, tmuxy offers a better UI to watch them in their work.
• Beginner-friendly: Do you know what <prefix> % does? Me neither! tmuxy won't judge you for using the mouse and the system menus.
• Mobile-friendly (Experimental): Combines the tmux power of detachable sessions with the convenience of the browser. Start something on your laptop, pick it up from your phone. No app required. (A VPN is highly recommended)
• Web-friendly: Built on web technologies to unlock richer interfaces. Pane group tabs, pane floats, image rendering, markdown preview, while behind the scenes it's still tmux!

A Rust backend connects to tmux via control mode and streams the terminal state to the frontend.

There are two ways to use tmuxy: the Web App mode and the Desktop App mode. In the web app, communication happens via HTTP/SSE. It is fast, I promise you. But it's even faster if you use the desktop app (built with Tauri), that skips the network layer and talks to the same Rust core through IPC.

       ┌──────────────┐
       │     tmux     │
       │(control mode)│
       └──────┬───────┘
              │
       ┌──────▼───────┐
       │ rust backend │
       └─┬──────────┬─┘
       HTTP        IPC
         │          │
  ┌──────▼────┐ ┌───▼───────┐
  │  browser  │ │ tauri app │
  └───────────┘ └───────────┘

tmuxy drives a real tmux, so it needs tmux 3.4 or newer (tmux -V). Homebrew and the .deb install it for you, and the app tells you at launch if it is missing or too old.

brew install --cask flplima/tap/tmuxy

The desktop app is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without a Gatekeeper warning — whether you install it with the cask or download the DMG from the Releases page.

Homebrew casks are macOS-only, so on Linux install the formula (no --cask):

brew install flplima/tap/tmuxy

This installs the AppImage as the tmuxy command. Running it needs FUSE (libfuse2 on Debian/Ubuntu) at runtime.

Run tmuxy once and it adds itself to the applications menu, so the GUI is launchable without the terminal from then on. Set TMUXY_NO_DESKTOP_ENTRY=1 to skip that.

Prefer a native package? Grab the .deb or .AppImage directly from the Releases page.

Launch tmuxy from your applications menu or terminal.

Start the server on loopback (127.0.0.1:9000 by default):

tmuxy server                # start background server on port 9000
tmuxy server status         # view status and port
tmuxy server stop           # stop the running server

Open http://localhost:9000 in any browser. For remote machines, access over an SSH tunnel (ssh -NL 9000:localhost:9000 user@host) or set a password with TMUXY_PASSWORD=... tmuxy server --host 0.0.0.0 (see docs/SECURITY.md).

They are still there — tmuxy just isn't looking at them yet.

tmuxy runs tmux on a socket of its own (tmuxy), not the one your bare tmux command uses. That is deliberate: it means tmuxy cannot disturb the session you are working in, and an update or a crash cannot take your real work with it.

To point it at your own tmux server instead:

• Desktop app — the session menu lists my tmux under Servers whenever that server has sessions. Pick it; the app reconnects in place.

• Web — the server binds its socket at launch, so tell it at launch:

  TMUX_SOCKET=default tmuxy server

Attaching to your own server applies only the settings tmuxy cannot work without — it will not touch your prefix, your status line or your bindings there. Your own ~/.tmux.conf is not loaded on tmuxy's own socket by default either; tmuxy config use-tmux-conf on changes that (see docs/TMUX.md).

On macOS these are the Cmd shortcuts you would expect instead: Cmd+A, Cmd+C, Cmd+N and Cmd+1…9. A window here is an OS window — several can watch one session, each on its own tab (Window ▸ New Window).

All mutations are also accessible from the terminal via the tmuxy CLI:

tmuxy pane float            # float the current pane or target pane
tmuxy pane unfloat          # unfloat back into the tiling layout
tmuxy queue push <id> <msg> # push message to an agent/pane queue
tmuxy queue pop <id>        # pop message (blocking or timed)
tmuxy ask <id> "question"   # ask confirmation in another pane
tmuxy tree                  # open interactive session/tab/pane tree

git clone https://github.com/flplima/tmuxy.git
cd tmuxy
npm run devcontainer
# I strongly recommend using the devcontainer, unless you don't mind
# messing with your host tmux sessions while vibe coding

# From here, ask your AI agent for help.
# Good luck!

The same .devcontainer/ works in three places:

No script hardcodes a workspace path — each derives the repo root from its own location — so the workspace may live wherever the host puts it. Codespaces ignores runArgs and the credential volumes; the scripts that maintain those no-op when $CODESPACES is set. Enable prebuilds for the repo before using Codespaces in anger: the image builds tmux and the Rust toolchain from source and is slow cold.

GitHub Copilot's cloud coding agent uses neither — it bootstraps from .github/workflows/copilot-setup-steps.yml.

MIT