herdr

name	herdr
description	Control herdr from inside it. Manage workspaces and tabs, split panes, spawn agents, read output, and wait for state changes — all via CLI commands that talk to the running herdr instance over a local unix socket. Use when running inside herdr (HERDR_ENV=1).

herdr — agent skill

before using this skill, check that HERDR_ENV=1. if it is not set to 1, say you are not running inside a herdr-managed pane and stop. do not inspect or control the focused herdr pane from outside herdr.

you are running inside herdr, a terminal-native agent multiplexer. herdr gives you workspaces, tabs, and panes — each pane is a real terminal with its own shell, agent, server, or log stream — and you can control all of it from the cli.

this means you can:

• see what other panes and agents are doing
• create tabs for separate subcontexts inside one workspace
• split panes and run commands in them
• start servers, watch logs, and run tests in sibling panes
• wait for specific output before continuing
• wait for another agent to finish
• spawn more agent instances

the herdr binary is available in your PATH. its workspace, tab, pane, and agent commands talk to the running herdr instance over a local unix socket.

if you need the raw protocol or full api reference, read the socket api docs.

concepts

workspaces are project contexts. each workspace has one or more tabs. unless manually renamed, a workspace's label follows the first tab's root pane — usually the repo name, otherwise the root pane's current folder name.

tabs are subcontexts inside a workspace. each tab has one or more panes.

panes are terminal splits inside a tab. each pane runs its own process — a shell, an agent, a server, anything.

agent status is detected automatically by herdr. the api exposes one public field for it:

• agent_status — idle, working, blocked, done, unknown

done means the agent finished, but you have not looked at that finished pane yet.

plain shells still exist as panes, but herdr's sidebar agent section intentionally focuses on detected agents rather than listing every shell.

ids — workspace ids look like w1, w2. tab ids look like w1:t1, w1:t2, w2:t1. pane ids look like w1:p1, w1:p2, w2:p1. these are compact public ids for the current live session.

important: ids can compact when tabs, panes, or workspaces are closed. do not treat them as durable ids. re-read ids from workspace list, tab list, pane list, or create/split responses when you need a current id. do not guess that an older w1:p3 is still the same pane later.

the installed binary is the authority for command syntax — run herdr --help, then run a command group without a subcommand to see its subcommands, if anything here looks out of date.

discover yourself

see what panes exist:

herdr pane list

do not rely on the focused pane being yours — focus can belong to the user or another client and can move at any time. identify yourself with the HERDR_PANE_ID (and HERDR_WORKSPACE_ID, HERDR_TAB_ID) environment variables injected into every managed pane, or pass --current where a command supports it.

list workspaces:

herdr workspace list

tab management

list tabs in the current workspace:

herdr tab list --workspace w1

create a new tab:

herdr tab create --workspace w1

without --label, the new tab keeps the default numbered tab name.

create and name it in one step:

herdr tab create --workspace w1 --label "logs"

rename it:

herdr tab rename w1:t2 "logs"

focus it:

herdr tab focus w1:t2

close it:

herdr tab close w1:t2

read another pane

see what is on another pane's screen:

herdr pane read w1:p1 --source recent --lines 50

• --source visible = current viewport
• --source recent = recent scrollback as rendered in the pane
• --source recent-unwrapped = recent terminal text with soft wraps joined back together

split a pane and run a command

split your pane to the right and keep focus on your current pane:

herdr pane split w1:p2 --direction right --no-focus

that prints json with the new pane nested at result.pane.pane_id. parse that value, then run a command in that pane:

NEW_PANE=$(herdr pane split w1:p2 --direction right --no-focus | python3 -c 'import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)["result"]["pane"]["pane_id"])')
herdr pane run "$NEW_PANE" "npm run dev"

split downward instead:

herdr pane split w1:p2 --direction down --no-focus

wait for output

block until specific text appears in a pane. useful for waiting on servers, builds, and tests.

for --source recent, matching uses unwrapped recent terminal text, so pane width and soft wrapping do not break matches. pane read --source recent still shows the pane as rendered. if you want to inspect the same transcript that the waiter matches, use pane read --source recent-unwrapped.

herdr pane wait-output w1:p3 --match "ready on port 3000" --timeout 30000

with regex:

herdr pane wait-output w1:p3 --regex "server.*ready" --timeout 30000

if it times out, exit code is 1.

wait for an agent status

block until another agent reaches a specific status. target it by its unique agent name or the pane id currently hosting it:

herdr agent wait w1:p1 --until done --timeout 60000

--until is repeatable if you want to stop on any of several statuses (e.g. --until done --until blocked).

send text or keys to a pane

send text without pressing Enter:

herdr pane send-text w1:p1 "hello from claude"

press Enter or other keys:

herdr pane send-keys w1:p1 Enter

pane run sends the text and then a real Enter key in one request:

herdr pane run w1:p1 "echo hello"

workspace management

create a new workspace:

herdr workspace create --cwd /path/to/project

without --label, the new workspace keeps the default cwd-based name.

create and name one in one step:

herdr workspace create --cwd /path/to/project --label "api server"

create one without focusing it:

herdr workspace create --no-focus

focus a workspace:

herdr workspace focus w2

rename:

herdr workspace rename w1 "api server"

close:

herdr workspace close w2

close a pane

herdr pane close w1:p3

spawn and coordinate with other agents

herdr has a dedicated agent command group for starting and coordinating agent instances (as opposed to the lower-level pane/tab primitives above):

herdr agent start <name> --kind <kind> --pane <pane_id> --timeout <ms> -- <args>
herdr agent prompt <name-or-pane> "<brief>" --wait --until working --timeout <ms>
herdr agent wait <name-or-pane> --until done --timeout <ms>
herdr agent send-keys <name-or-pane> esc
herdr agent list

agent commands accept either a unique live agent name or the pane id currently hosting it.

recipes

run a server and wait until it is ready

NEW_PANE=$(herdr pane split w1:p2 --direction right --no-focus | python3 -c 'import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)["result"]["pane"]["pane_id"])')
herdr pane run "$NEW_PANE" "npm run dev"
herdr pane wait-output "$NEW_PANE" --match "ready" --timeout 30000
herdr pane read "$NEW_PANE" --source recent --lines 20

run tests in a separate pane and inspect the result

herdr pane split w1:p2 --direction down --no-focus
herdr pane run w1:p3 "cargo test"
herdr pane wait-output w1:p3 --match "test result" --timeout 60000
herdr pane read w1:p3 --source recent --lines 30

check what another agent is working on

herdr pane list
herdr pane read w1:p1 --source recent --lines 80

watch another pane robustly

use this pattern when you need to coordinate with a sibling pane:

# inspect what is already there
herdr pane read w1:p3 --source recent --lines 40

# wait only for the next output you expect
herdr pane wait-output w1:p3 --match "ready" --timeout 30000

# if you need to inspect the same transcript the waiter matched,
# read the unwrapped recent text directly
herdr pane read w1:p3 --source recent-unwrapped --lines 40

spawn a new agent and give it a task

herdr pane split w1:p2 --direction right --no-focus
herdr pane run w1:p3 "claude"
herdr pane wait-output w1:p3 --match ">" --timeout 15000
herdr pane run w1:p3 "review the test coverage in src/api/"

coordinate with another agent

herdr agent wait w1:p1 --until done --timeout 120000
herdr pane read w1:p1 --source recent --lines 100

notes

• workspace list, workspace create, tab list, tab create, tab get, tab focus, tab rename, tab close, pane list, pane get, pane split, pane wait-output, agent wait, and agent list print json on success.
• pane read prints text, not json.
• pane read --format ansi or pane read --ansi returns a rendered ANSI snapshot for TUI feedback loops.
• pane read --source recent-unwrapped is useful when you want to inspect the same unwrapped transcript that pane wait-output --source recent matches against.
• pane send-text, pane send-keys, and pane run print nothing on success.
• parse ids from workspace create, tab create, and pane split responses when you need new ids. workspace create returns result.workspace, result.tab, and result.root_pane. tab create returns result.tab and result.root_pane. for pane split, the new pane id is at result.pane.pane_id.
• use pane read for current output that already exists. use pane wait-output for future output you expect next.
• --no-focus on split, tab create, and workspace create keeps your current terminal context focused.
• without --label, workspace create keeps cwd-based naming and tab create keeps numbered naming.
• --label on tab create and workspace create applies the custom name immediately.
• if you are running inside herdr, the HERDR_ENV environment variable is set to 1, and HERDR_WORKSPACE_ID/HERDR_TAB_ID/HERDR_PANE_ID identify your own pane.