I’ve been looking for a replacement for tmux for a long time. My main requirement was a single binary, so I could install it everywhere - even on boxes where I don’t have root access.
I tried Zellij for a while, and while it is quite cool and has tons of features, it never quite clicked for me, so I always ended up back in tmux.
Then a few months ago I found Herdr, and this time it clicked. Even without all the agent features, Herdr feels like a better tmux than tmux. And yes, it’s a single binary2, so it now goes on every box I touch 🎉
Herdr is built for coding agents3. It keeps real terminals running in the background, so your agents can continue working when you close the lid on your laptop. It also keeps track of whether each agent is working, blocked, or idle, so you can see which one needs attention without hunting through panes.
It works directly with all the agent CLIs, like Claude Code, Codex, and many, many others, without wrapping or replacing them.
Herdr also has a plugin system, so naturally I had to write a plugin for it. herdr-titles keeps your window and tab titles in sync with what is actually running.
It:
- Automatically renames tabs to the foreground program4, with optional Nerd Font icons5
- Uses the agent’s session title for tabs running an agent, e.g. “Fix flaky integration test”
- Builds window titles from a customizable template with variables for workspace, tab, and agent status counts
- Uses shell hooks for zsh, bash & fish to update titles as soon as you run a command
- Leaves manually renamed tabs alone
Installing it is a one-liner:
herdr plugin install davidolrik/herdr-titlesIf you live in the terminal like I do, Herdr is well worth a look - and I hope my little plugin makes it even nicer to use.
