Tmux Automation

Tmux Automation

Interact with running AI coding sessions for automation workflows.

Building an external orchestrator that owns the tool's runtime (its own terminal, streaming, and lifecycle)? See Headless Orchestration (coi tool spec) — it prints the tool's launch command + env for you to run, and composes with the coi tmux send / capture commands below for out-of-band prompt delivery and I/O.

List Sessions

# List all active tmux sessions
coi tmux list

Send Commands

Send commands or prompts to a running AI session:

# Send a prompt to the AI
coi tmux send coi-abc12345-1 "write a hello world script"

# Send an exit command
coi tmux send coi-abc12345-1 "/exit"

# Send multiple commands
coi tmux send coi-abc12345-1 "run tests"
coi tmux send coi-abc12345-1 "fix any failures"

Capture Output

Capture the current visible output from a session:

# Capture output from specific session
coi tmux capture coi-abc12345-1

Automation Use Cases

Batch Processing

Send prompts in sequence and poll for completion before moving on:

#!/bin/bash

# Helper: wait until the session output stops changing
wait_for_idle() {
  local session="$1"
  local prev=""
  while true; do
    current=$(coi tmux capture "$session")
    [ "$current" = "$prev" ] && break
    prev="$current"
    sleep 3
  done
}

for prompt in "create tests" "document code" "optimize performance"; do
  coi tmux send my-session "$prompt"
  wait_for_idle my-session
  coi tmux capture my-session > "output-${prompt// /-}.txt"
done

Polling, Not Sleep Fixed sleep durations are unreliable — tasks complete at different speeds. The wait_for_idle helper above polls until output stabilizes. For AI tools that print a prompt marker when ready (e.g., >), grep for that marker instead of comparing full output.

CI/CD Integration

#!/bin/bash
# Start a persistent session, run an AI task, capture results
# (persistence comes from config: [container] persistent = true)

# Launch and wait for the session to be ready
coi shell
SESSION=$(coi list --running --format=json | jq -r '.active_containers[0].name')

# Send task and wait for completion
coi tmux send "$SESSION" "analyze code for security issues"

# Poll until output stabilises (AI tool returned to prompt)
prev=""
while true; do
  current=$(coi tmux capture "$SESSION")
  [ "$current" = "$prev" ] && break
  prev="$current"
  sleep 5
done

coi tmux capture "$SESSION" > security-report.txt
coi shutdown "$SESSION"

Monitoring

# Periodically check AI session output
while true; do
  coi tmux capture my-session | grep -i "error\|warning" && notify-send "Issue detected"
  sleep 300
done

Unattended Tasks

# Queue multiple AI tasks to run overnight
# (persistence via config: [container] persistent = true)
coi shell --slot 1 &
sleep 5
coi tmux send coi-workspace-1 "refactor module A"
coi tmux send coi-workspace-1 "refactor module B"
coi tmux send coi-workspace-1 "refactor module C"
coi tmux send coi-workspace-1 "/exit"

Notes

• Sessions use tmux internally
• Standard tmux commands work after attaching with coi attach
• Use container name (from coi list) to target specific sessions
• Commands are sent as-is to the AI tool's input
• Capture shows the current terminal buffer (visible output only)

See Also

• Headless Orchestration - coi tool spec: drive any tool from an external orchestrator
• Container Operations - Full container management command reference
• Container Lifecycle and Sessions - How sessions and tmux windows relate