TmuxAI is here: Tmux terminal multiplexer gets AI assistant

The open-source AI assistant TmuxAI for the terminal multiplexer Tmux has been released. It is designed to virtually look over users' shoulders, permanently monitor the contents of the terminal tiles and provide support on request. The tool includes two additional tiles for this purpose. One contains the chat, for which TmuxAI uses the Gemini 2.5 Flash language model from Google as standard. In the other tile, the assistant can execute commands independently. In all other tiles, TmuxAI has read-only rights to use their content as context.

TmuxAI monitors commands and log files

In this observation mode, which is active by default, TmuxAI accesses the current command and system information that the AI assistant transmits to the language model in addition to the terminal content. If its response contains a command, the user decides whether to execute it. If the user agrees, the tool accepts the command output as a new context for further requests after a specified period of time — five seconds by default. Alternatively, TmuxAI includes a preparation mode in which the AI assistant first waits until a command has been fully executed.

There is also a monitoring mode. Users can instruct the AI assistant to pay attention to certain actions and provide feedback. For example, TmuxAI can analyze the user's input and suggest more efficient alternatives for the same task or point out possible security risks of the commands. The tool can also monitor the contents of log files, detect errors and suggest possible solutions.

Connection to language models via OpenRouter

For the integration of language models, TmuxAI uses an interface to the OpenRouter platform, which is also used for billing. Before starting for the first time, users enter their API key in the configuration file. In addition, the Gemini model used by default can be replaced with another language model from the OpenRouter portfolio. Alternatively, TmuxAI also supports the OpenAI interface and compatible endpoints, such as those from Anthropic. Furthermore, the configuration for a session can be temporarily overwritten, for example, to use a different language model during use.

To save tokens and ensure cost-effective operation, TmuxAI summarizes the previous chat history of a session. A maximum number of tokens can be defined in the configuration file for this purpose. If the context grows to more than 80 percent of this limit, the tool will automatically compress the history. Users can also trigger a summary manually during use.

All functions of the AI assistant for Tmux can be found on the TmuxAI website. The tool is currently available for x64 and ARM64 systems with Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Darwin. Under Linux, TmuxAI also supports other processor architectures. All packages of the application licensed under Apache 2.0 are available for download on GitHub. Since the update to version 16, the terminal multiplexer Tmux can also be used for server administration in XPipe.

(sfe)