I don't understand herdr, can you explain it to me? I've tried it, but I don't understand what it gives me over tmux other than the agent sidebar. But people seem excited about it so I feel like I am missing something.
It's built for ai agents, tmux works but isn't designed for an ai workflow. Herdr is also very well thought out, not just the design/approach but also the interaction and mouse support, responsive support, etc. I had been using tmux, switched and haven't looked back.
> It's built for ai agents, tmux works but isn't designed for an ai workflow
So an opportunity to learn the Bitter Lesson [1].
If tmux is good enough for people today, it should be good enough for agets tomorrow. That gap might comprise a beachhead. But you'd better scramble off the shores onto something more defensible fast.
You say this like there's no value in a transitional technology. Yes, tmux should be good enough for agents tomorrow. But here we are, today.
Also, herdr is just an open source project with no VC capital behind it. So I don't think it needs to scramble to something more defensible. It can live a happy life pleasing users and then fade into obsolescence.
> Yes, tmux should be good enough for agents tomorrow. But here we are, today.
tmux is good enough for agents today. they're great at driving it, they're great at customizing it, what's the problem people have with it? i am confused.
I'm sorry but I am still confused. What specifically does herdr give me over tmux? "It is designed for agents" is just marketing speech, it means nothing. Ok, it has mouse support, fine, I don't care about that one but I can see how it's useful to some people. That has nothing to do with agents though. zellij also has a better user experience than tmux, so you could just use that or any of the other dozen multiplexers.
I understand it has the agent pane on the left that tells you what is running but... that's it?
Realistically, what I use about its agent stuff is:
- reliable notification pings either via what your terminal app uses (e.g., ghostty's) or system or just within herdr only
- if absolutely necessary, be able to tell agent sessions to observe and run commands on a herdr pane (security beware, for obvious reasons)
- herdr --remote which is basically a quick SSH -> attach to herdr on a remote
- prefix+g (equivalent to prefix+w in tmux) presents itself nicer, has binds for agent state filtering and its /search imho is mildly nicer than tmux's
Arguably, you can have the same points in others if you know how to configure tmux or zellij already, so if you're comfortable with that then you really don't have to use herdr.
There is a cross platform terminal notification cli that I used to vibe code notifications in like 5minutes and I have traffic light indicators on my tmux panes showing when an agent is waiting. The other things are also all possible. An agent is super happy to remote control tmux, it knows all the commands!
Yep, I did similar stuff too! Used something like ntfy to push notifs to an Android or just whatever commands are available on the OS you're in (e.g., `notify-send`). And for state reads herdr has `herdr pane read` while you can happily accomplish similar results with `tmux capture-pane` or similar.
IME yes that’s basically it. Other features haven’t really been significant value add for me. Some of the keybindings are different in minor ways. It has some mouse support but I have found that it doesn’t work well with certain apps/selections (eg: less).
It’s fine.
When running many agents something like the “idle/working workstreams” gutter is honestly helpful though.
I don't really get it either. I installed it to try it out, but I still don't understand why it's getting so much attention. I don't even use tmux. My window manager already gives me workspaces, splits, and tiling, so I don't need those features there. I also prefer focusing on a single project instead of juggling five at once. And I don't really care about notifications. I just switch back to the relevant workspace and check on things when I want to. So apart from the agent sidebar, I'm not seeing what problem it solves for me either.
you miss the multiplexer part. multiplexers are awesome if you have them on a persistent machine like a server you SSH into. To me herdr feels more like a modern alternative to tmux or zellij with the agent features being a nice add on.
I rebuild herdr from master every few days to gauge the direction it’s moving in.
What herdr gets right over zellij:
- Default keybinds don’t conflict with helix. Even the leader key mode in zellij keeps alt-bindings around. Herdr keeps things nicely tucked away.
- There’s beta support for the kitty image protocol. Three years on, we’re still waiting in zellij.
- Notifications get passed correctly through to the terminal.
As for herdr’s killer feature, agent status monitoring, there is apparently a zellij plugin.
Big win for zellij: the docs and code feel human. By contrast, herdr’s docs have all the tells of a vibe coded project. Not to say the maintainer hasn’t put care into it! But I’m getting burned out on LLM docs.
I started to use tmux-claude-session-manager (https://github.com/craftzdog/tmux-claude-session-manager) in tmux, to have a pop-up to see all active sessions. I don't have many in parallel, so usually I don't even need, but if I'm lost or forgot one, it's really helpful.
It workss a lot better for me especially copy paste which was always flakey af for me in tmux no matter what plugin i tried. 2 dimensions of panel amalgamation is suprisingly beneficial to my work flow organization too. The ai m(nitors would be useful if i cared about that. Herdr spreader plugin gives me tmuxp like behavipur especially with the herdinator.sh script currently in issues. Overall a big improvement over tmux without the bloatey slow feeling of zellij
It also doesn't have copy-paste buffers, which makes me sad. Relies on OSC52 support / system clipboards - and when you are 3 emulators / tunnels deep into a connection - rarely works.
