tmux-lanes

Tmux Lanes

Manage a multi-agent workspace as a set of tmux panes, each one a lane with a known state, a known assignment, and a clean lifecycle.

What this is

When you're running multiple AI agents in parallel, each in its own tmux pane, the workspace itself becomes an instrument that needs tuning. Which pane is active? Which is stale? Which is ready for new work? What's each one doing?

This skill turns the tmux window into a managed workspace: visible state, deliberate allocation, clean handoffs.

Executable sub-skills: lanes-status for a quick status view, lanes-plan for allocation proposals.

When to use it

• Any workflow where multiple agents run in parallel tmux panes
• When you've lost track of which pane is doing what
• Before allocating new work across lanes
• When stale sessions are cluttering the workspace

The pattern

Status view

Probe the workspace and present the full picture. Three commands give you everything:

# Inventory: index, size, process, PID
tmux list-panes -t <window> -F '#{pane_index} #{pane_width}x#{pane_height} #{pane_current_command} #{pane_pid}'

# Titles: what each pane is named
tmux list-panes -t <window> -F '#{pane_index} #{pane_title}'

# State: last few lines of each pane's output
for i in 0 1 2; do echo "=== Pane $i ===" && tmux capture-pane -t <window>.$i -p | tail -5; done

From the captured output, classify each pane:

• Active: an agent is running and producing output
• Idle/Stale: an agent session is open but waiting for input (e.g. INSERT mode with no recent activity)
• Shell: no agent running, clean prompt ready for work
• Unknown: something else is running

Render the result as a table:

┌─────────────────┬────────┬──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│      Pane       │  Size  │        Title         │                 Status                   │
├─────────────────┼────────┼──────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 0 (left)        │ 162x82 │ "meta"               │ Us — meta, active                        │
├─────────────────┼────────┼──────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 1 (upper-right) │ 153x40 │ "Feature work"       │ Stale — last session's agent, idle       │
├─────────────────┼────────┼──────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 2 (lower-right) │ 153x41 │ "Research"           │ Shell — ready for new agent              │
└─────────────────┴────────┴──────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┘