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  • I switched from tmux to Herdr about six weeks ago. It's a great bit of software, the UI is focused on switching between multiple agents quickly. I run Herdr to keep my opencode instances well managed, and it also works great for having a few terminals opens next to your agent. I find myself keeping opencode sessions open for longer like what happens with Codex and Claude code, which is great if I need to revisit a context to do some follow up work. I'm genuinely excited to see if the creators can bring even more value to the application.

    If you're worried about enshittification I wouldn't be. It's relatively basic open source software that runs locally. A perfect candidate for a fork if the base app starts degrading.

    by hx8
  • What made you prefer it to tmux? Looking at their demo, they put a lot of emphasis on the workspace like feature which tmux already got with sessions. Not sure what is the point of all those new tui runtime, tried a few but always got back to tmux, what am I missing?
    by mickaelkerjean
  • Honestly, how are you guys running multiple agents, presumably with them all writing code?

    I find myself to be a huge bottleneck, having to do technical design and design reviews, to make sure they're actually working on the right things.

    I feel like there's not enough coding work to justify multiple agents, that part doesn't take long, and then it's back to design again.

    by apt-apt-apt-apt
  • Ironically a lot of YC hate despite the fact that we are literally in their forum.
    by ernsheong
  • I don't think it's about YC specifically, more about VC-driven enshittification of open source software in general.
    by loveparade
  • Like the articles, hate the influence of VC on open source. Even if it stays open it still gets ruined. See Bun for an example.
    by xyzsparetimexyz
  • I've been using Herdr for a while now, but I'd like a multiplexer that's also a meta-harness that I can connect to remotely. I know others have setups that work, I just haven't quite figured it out yet.
    by vehemenz
  • i just ssh to my machine (from phone etc) and run `herdr` to resume.
    by asadm
  • Simplest setup would be just plain ssh/mosh. Nothing more exotic.

    I have seen moshi.app but haven't tested it yet.

    by kkapelon
  • My same line of thinking and apparently of several others, turns out herdr has a plug-in for this: https://github.com/nikok6/herdr-mirror which is close to what I need.
    by durdn
  • Moshi has an integration with Herdr; you can connect to your herdr sessions over mosh, your touches register as mouse clicks in the UI (which is minimally rendered above the shell), and there’s a shortcut bar which can issue herdr-keymapped commands.

    It’s not open source, and costs a few bucks, but it works well and has live Claude/Codex/etc notifications if you are willing to install a hook daemon on your hosts with homebrew. I was looking for batteries-included “code from my iPhone” after trying a bunch of self-hosted stuff, now I connect to my Macs over Tailscale and get dropped right into multiplexer sessions with rich status notifications.

    https://getmoshi.app/

    by threecheese
  • I started using Herdr and I really like it. Since the main features I wanted are already there, I have no issue with the commercialization. I still wonder how this can be turned into a profitable business. It'll be really interesting to follow Herdr's future. All the best to the founder!
    by la_fayette
  • Okay, back to tmux it is then.
    by humblepie
  • Try https://zmx.sh for a more minimalist tool
    by qudat
  • For the tmux crowd: please consider sponsoring the author

    https://github.com/nicm

    https://liberapay.com/tmux

    by abiro
  • I am going to be PRing herdr to stagex as it is my daily driver. This will give it a totally independent release process with multiple parties bootstrapping, reproducing, and signing deterministic binaries for it alongside our tmux releases.

    We (the stagex team) will naturally patch out any corpo tracking bullshit that may or may not happen in the future, and follow the dominant community fork should it be needed, as we did with terraform -> opentofu.

    As long as herdr does not enshittify though, we will be happy to provide very high supply chain integrity releases for it as-is starting with probably next months stagex release.

    Absolutely no problem with FOSS developers finding revenue streams to give themselves more resources to make their projects better.

    My own company is 100% FOSS with nothing held back and will stay that way, even though we are in the current YC batch with more customers signing every week. Admittedly this is atypical, but it can be done.

    by lrvick
  • Yes, just using tmux. I built a lightweight python TUI wrapper than can start Claude code, codex and open code using tmux because I was loosing my mind to retrieve my sessions and context. Using it for the last 6+ months. Some bugs still where the Claude sessions are not killed properly time to time. https://github.com/michaelricordeau/ccs
    by mricordeau
  • Give it a whirl with Workmux! I moved from Herdr to Workmux + Tmux about a month ago and am enjoying it. Significantly more flexibility.
    by SierraJC
  • I started noticing problems with MCP auth state failing inside herdr, but working in a normal terminal session or with tmux, so I switched back to using tmux and it's been flawless. I also noticed that herdr was causing errors/warnings in ordinary terminal sessions so it's more trouble than it's worth at the moment (at least for me). It's a shame though, since I otherwise think it's a good tool.
    by chrysoprace
  • I built hive that’s similar to herdr but sits beside tmux instead. It provides a nice status UI on top of tmux instead of building the multiplexer. It also has a bunch of other utilities for working with agents like a message bus and task management framework.

    https://github.com/colonyops/hive

    by haykot
  • Over the last year I ended up duct taping a lot of functionality onto tmux to get what these new age multiplexers set out to do (session launch, live agent status, etc). And it works, but it definitely feels like duct tape.

    I'm not sure the tmux project wants to evolve to support this natively so for now herdr seems like one of the best open and forkable options available. Considering how little I've had to really touch my tmux setup after getting it going I don't think it's necessarily the worst thing in the world if the FOSS community maintains a deshittified fork of herdr, should it come to that.

    by dgunay
  • I am guessing this now directly competes with mitchellh's multiplexer / Superlogical.
    by asadm
  • I just wouldn't bet against Mitchell. He doesn't need the money. He does it for the love of it.
    by SJMG
  • Congrats to the herdr team! Please don't abandon the open source part of the business when the cash starts flowing... every open source project that does a bait'n'switch is a stab at the viability of open source as a whole
    by khalic
  • If they take vc funding, it's only a matter of when, not if. They all say that.
    by vrighter
  • Congrats to Can! I am using Herdr and i think its a great tool. A modern solo dev success story , very inspirational.

    I see some negative comments here that I could understand why funding scares them when it comes to their open source tool but like.. atleast congratulate the guy.

    by user-
  • Yeah I was using cmux but it was Mac only and now I run herdr on my wsl and tunnel in from Mac and it’s awesome that it just mirrors everything. I like it and congrats to the founder
    by Johnny_Bonk
  • As a relatively recent herdr user, I’ll say (1) congratulations and (2) the thing that was most attractive was the seeming orthogonality of the tool. It sits apart, interfaces with subordinate programs in a few clearly delineated ways, and integrates them only as much as the user desires. Critically, “no integration just show me the terminal output of my program” is an option, and a useful one!

    I appreciate that discipline and respect for your user in the current tool, and hope to be a paying customer of a similarly values-aligned business you’ll build on top of it!

    by kristjansson
  • > That’s why I recently switched it from AGPL to Apache: I want everyone to use Herdr freely, without any problem.

    I'm curious what the actual problems with AGPL were.

    by ValentineC
  • FUD, can’t take investment when your project actually enforces user freedom.
    by yoyohello13