herdr FAQ

herdr is an agent multiplexer that lives in your terminal. It allows you to run all your coding agents in one terminal, providing a unified view of their status and activities. Each agent gets its own real terminal, not an app's imitation, so even full-screen TUIs render correctly.

herdr has multiple installation options:

Shell Install:
curl -fsSL https://herdr.dev/install.sh | sh

Windows Beta:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://herdr.dev/install.ps1 | iex"

Homebrew:
brew install herdr

Nix:
nix run github:ogulcancelik/herdr

You can also download stable Linux/macOS binaries from the releases page.

herdr is a single ~10MB Rust binary that runs on:

• Linux (64-bit)
• macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)
• Windows (beta version available)

It has no dependencies and runs inside your existing terminal.

Simply run herdr in your terminal. This will start or attach to a background server and open a workspace where you can run your agents.

herdr is mouse-native, so you can click and drag panes, tabs, and split borders. For keyboard users, ctrl+b is the prefix key for shortcuts.

Press ctrl+b then release, then press the action key:

• shift+n - new workspace
• v or minus - split panes
• c - new tab
• w - switch workspaces
• q - detach (agents keep running)
• ? - show all bindings

See the keyboard guide for more details.

Yes! Run herdr on a VPS and access it from your local terminal using herdr --remote. This makes your local terminal the client of the remote server, preserving features like image pasting that break with plain SSH + tmux.

herdr --remote workbox
herdr --remote ssh://you@yourserver:2222

See the persistence and remote docs for more details.

herdr supports many popular coding agents with built-in detection:

• pi, Claude Code, Codex
• droid, amp, opencode
• Grok CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI
• Cursor, Devin CLI, Kimi Code CLI
• QoderCLI, Kiro CLI, and more

Detection works out of the box with process-name matching and terminal-output heuristics. You can install official integrations for native session restore and semantic state reporting with herdr integration install .

herdr uses a combination of process-name matching and terminal-output heuristics to detect agent states:

• 🟢 Idle - Agent is ready for input
• 🟡 Working - Agent is processing a task
• 🔴 Blocked - Agent is waiting for input or user action
• 🔵 Done - Agent has completed its task

The sidebar shows all agents with their current status at a glance.

Agents can use herdr's local Unix socket to create workspaces, split panes, spawn helpers, read output, and subscribe to state changes. Install the reusable skill with:

npx skills add ogulcancelik/herdr --skill herdr -g

Start with the agent skill docs and socket API docs.

While tmux provides persistence and panes, it was built before agents existed and has no awareness of agent states. herdr gives you:

• Agent state awareness (blocked, working, done)
• Real terminal views for each agent
• Mouse-native interface
• Scriptable API for agents
• Lightweight single binary
• Works anywhere you can SSH

See the full comparison with tmux, zellij, cmux, warp, conductor, and more.

When you detach (using ctrl+b q), a background server keeps all panes and agents alive. Nothing dies! You can reattach from any terminal, including your phone over SSH, and continue exactly where you left off.

Yes! herdr is dual-licensed:

• Open source: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0-or-later)
• Commercial: Commercial licenses are available for organizations that cannot comply with AGPL

Contact hey@herdr.dev for commercial licensing inquiries.

We welcome contributions! Check out the GitHub repository for:

• Contributing guidelines
• Agent-specific instructions
• Open issues to help
• Pull requests to submit code changes

herdr is built full-time, in the open, with no revenue behind it. You can support development by:

• Becoming a sponsor (individuals and organizations)
• Spreading the word about herdr
• Contributing code or documentation
• Reporting bugs and suggesting features

Thank you for your support! 🐑