tmux

Manage long-running shell sessions with tmux — start a detached session, run a long task, reattach later, capture output. Use when a task takes longer than a single tool call (build, test, log tail).

Quality

100%

Does it follow best practices?

Run evals on this skill

Adds up to 20 points to the overall score

View guide

Securityby

Passed

No findings from the security scan

tmux — long-running session management

tmux is on PATH in the gateway. Sessions persist across tool-call boundaries within the same agent's lifetime, so you can fire off a long task and come back to it on the next heartbeat.

Start a detached session

# Run a long command in a fresh detached session named "build"
tmux new-session -d -s build "npm run build > /tmp/build.log 2>&1"

Check on a session

# List sessions
tmux list-sessions

# Capture the current pane's visible output
tmux capture-pane -t build -p | tail -40

# Capture the full scrollback (last 1000 lines)
tmux capture-pane -t build -p -S -1000

Send input to a session

# Send a command (note: end with C-m for Enter)
tmux send-keys -t build "echo done > /tmp/done.flag" C-m

End a session

tmux kill-session -t build

Common patterns

Long-running build with status flag

tmux new-session -d -s build "
  npm run build > /tmp/build.log 2>&1
  echo \$? > /tmp/build.exit
"

# Later (next heartbeat):
if [ -f /tmp/build.exit ]; then
  EXIT=\$(cat /tmp/build.exit)
  echo "Build finished with exit code \$EXIT"
  tail -20 /tmp/build.log
else
  echo "Build still running..."
fi

Tail a log without blocking

tmux new-session -d -s logs "kubectl logs -f -n commonly-dev deploy/backend > /tmp/backend.log"
# Read on demand:
tail -50 /tmp/backend.log

When NOT to use tmux

For one-shot commands → run them directly with acpx_run or shell.
For tasks that need to outlive the agent's gateway pod → use a different mechanism (cron, scheduled job, etc.).
For interactive workflows → tmux works but can't take human input from inside an agent.

Repository: Team-Commonly/commonly
Path: backend/commonly-bundled-skills/tmux/SKILL.md
Commit: 69b6005

Last updated: about 16 hours ago
First committed: 3 months ago

Is this your skill?

If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.