claude-dm

name	claude-dm
description	Send peer-to-peer message and control to Claude Code sessions. Use when coordinating multiple simultaneous Claude sessions, or user says "dm another claude", "list claude sessions", "peek peer claude", "spawn claude in tmux", "monitor remote claude", "notify peer in tmux", "send to peer", "handover to claude", "inspect peer transcript", "orchestrate claude sessions".

claude-dm

Peer-to-peer messaging between independent Claude Code sessions that share a tmux server.

When to use

• Multiple Claude Code sessions are running on the same machine (check with list), and one needs to inspect or communicate with another.
• You need to know what another Claude is currently working on, without attaching to its tmux pane.
• You want to trigger a slash command (/compact, /claude-dm, etc.) in another session.
• Send a prompt to a peer and wait for the reply as data.

When NOT to use

• To spawn a child Claude for one-shot work → use the Agent tool.
• To spawn a headless Claude from CLI → use the /claude-headless skill.
• To schedule a future Claude run → use the CronCreate (local) or /schedule (remote).
• To send a message to remote Claude on a different machine → see portable/README.md.

Prerequisites

• Peers must run in tmux (any socket). Default resolution: $CLAUDE_DM_SOCKET or /tmp/tmux-$(id -u)/default.
• Same Unix user (or a shared socket with group perms).
• claude-dm available in $PATH (otherwise fallback to bin/claude-dm under skill dir).

Verbs

claude-dm list                                 # roster of claude panes
claude-dm status <target>                      # state + safety gate result
claude-dm peek   <target> [N]                  # last N text blocks of peer's transcript
claude-dm tail   <target>                      # live-follow peer's JSONL
claude-dm wait   <target> [int_s] [to_s]       # block until peer reaches idle/modal
claude-dm send   <target> <msg>   [--force]
claude-dm cmd    <target> /<slash> [--force] [--confirm]
claude-dm ask    <target> <msg>   [timeout_s]
claude-dm esc    <target>          [--force]   # Escape: interrupt turn or cancel modal
claude-dm answer <target> <key>    [--force]   # pick modal option (1/2/3/y/n/a/…)
claude-dm self   /<slash>                      # queue a user-only slash command on the current pane

<target> is session:window.pane on the current socket (e.g. HOME:8.1).

list marks the current session's row with a trailing * on the ADDR column (e.g. _claude:7.1*). Strip the * before passing the addr to other verbs. Self detection only fires when $CLAUDE_DM_SOCKET matches the socket from $TMUX.

The LAST column shows compact elapsed time (17s, 8m, 1h21m, 3d20h) since the peer's transcript JSONL was last written — useful for triaging which idle peers are stale-idle vs just-finished. - means no transcript could be resolved.

Peer states

peer_state reports one of five values, shown in status and used by every gate:

State	Meaning	Source signal
🟢 idle	at ❯ prompt, buffer empty — safe to DM	title ✳ + empty box
🔵 busy	streaming a turn / running a tool	title has spinner glyph
🟠 drafting	human has unsubmitted text in the input	box contains non-menu text
🔴 modal	permission / AskUserQuestion prompt open	box has ≥2 numbered options
⚫ other	not a Claude REPL, or unknown UI	missing box/❯ markers

When state is modal, status also reports a subtype — permission (Bash/Edit/Write/Notebook being gated) or question (AskUserQuestion) — resolved from the most recent tool_use in the transcript.

Gate matrix

Verb	Allowed on	Refused on	Override
send	idle (+ L3 end_turn)	everything else	--force
cmd	idle (+ L3 end_turn)	everything else	--force (red-tier also needs --confirm)
ask	idle (+ L3 end_turn)	everything else	--force
esc	busy, modal, idle, other	drafting only (would wipe human's draft)	--force
answer	modal only	everything else	--force
self	own pane, input box empty	input box drafting / modal / unknown	none (allowlist is hard)
wait	always (terminal: idle/modal)	—	—
peek / tail / list / status	always	—	—

Why the draft protection: send-keys appends to the tty buffer. If a human has a half-typed draft, your message concatenates with theirs. Every write verb that goes through safe_to_dm catches this via the drafting state; esc applies the same rule explicitly.

Slash-command tiers (for cmd)

Tier	Commands	Gate
🟢 green	everything else	safety only
🟡 yellow	/compact /loop /schedule	safety only
🔴 red	/clear /exit /resume /reset	safety + explicit --confirm

Red tier refuses to send without --confirm because those commands are irreversible for the peer.

Spawning a disposable target for testing

To smoke-test the tool without touching real peers:

tmux -S /tmp/claude-dm-test.sock -f /dev/null new-session -d -s test -n shell fish
CLAUDE_DM_SOCKET=/tmp/claude-dm-test.sock claude-dm send test:0.0 "hello" --force
tmux -S /tmp/claude-dm-test.sock kill-server   # when done

For a full roundtrip with a real Claude, spawn a fresh interactive session in the test socket (costs one session init but minimal tokens until prompted):

tmux -S /tmp/claude-dm-test.sock -f /dev/null new-session -d -s claude-test -n c 'claude'

Examples

Inspect a peer without touching it:

claude-dm list
claude-dm peek test:9.1 40
claude-dm status HOME:8.1

Trigger a skill on an idle peer:

claude-dm cmd HOME:6.1 "/compact"
claude-dm cmd HOME:6.1 "/claude-dm"

Ask and wait for reply:

claude-dm ask HOME:8.1 "What's the current test status?" 180

Block until a peer finishes its current turn (e.g. after dispatching work via send/cmd). Pair with Bash run_in_background + Monitor so the orchestrator agent gets a notification on the sentinel line and decides next steps:

claude-dm send HOME:8.1 "Run the full test suite and summarise failures."
claude-dm wait HOME:8.1                    # 30s polls, no timeout, blocks until DONE/MODAL
claude-dm wait HOME:8.1 10 600             # 10s polls, give up after 10 min
claude-dm wait HOME:8.1 10 600 60          # also require DONE gate to hold 60s

Output is one of:

• DONE — peer passes the same gate as safe_to_dm: pane title ✳ AND transcript's last assistant turn is end_turn. Title-idle alone is not enough; the loop keeps polling while a tool result is still pending so DONE never fires mid-turn.
• MODAL — peer hit a permission / AskUserQuestion modal.

The optional 4th arg debounce_s suppresses DONE until the gate has held that many consecutive seconds — guards against peers that chain short tool-result turns and would otherwise look transiently DONE between them. Resolution is one poll interval; debounce_s < interval_s effectively means "fire on the second consecutive idle poll".

Exit 1 (no stdout sentinel) on timeout or if the peer pane vanishes.

Interrupt a peer that's run too long, or cancel a stuck modal:

claude-dm esc test:10.2

Answer a permission prompt or AskUserQuestion on a peer:

claude-dm status HOME:6.1           # verify state=modal (permission/question)
claude-dm answer HOME:6.1 1         # pick option 1 (typically "Yes")
claude-dm answer HOME:6.1 2         # option 2 ("Yes, and don't ask again")
claude-dm answer HOME:6.1 3         # option 3 ("No")

Self-DM

Self-trigger a user-only slash command on the current pane:

claude-dm self /context             # context-window usage summary
claude-dm self "/context all"       # same, but expands per-item
claude-dm self /compact             # pre-emptive compaction before heavy work
claude-dm self /rename              # auto-name session from conversation history
claude-dm self "/rename my-session" # rename to a specific name

self resolves the current pane via $TMUX_PANE and the socket from $TMUX. The synchronous box check up front refuses if a draft or modal is already present (the same peer_box_state check that protects peer DMs).

self returns immediately. The slash command fires after the current turn ends; its output arrives in the next user-turn alongside a <notification>claude-dm self /<slash> dispatched; output above</notification>. Aborts silently if a draft or modal appears before fire time.

Audit trail

Every write appends to ~/.claude/claude-dm.log with timestamp, verb, target, and payload.

Limitations

• 🔴 TOCTOU — peer may enter a modal between check and send; the safety gate is best-effort, not transactional.
• 🔴 Cross-machine — not supported directly; tmux socket is local. To address peers on an SSH host or inside a Docker container, build the single-file bundle and run it on the remote: see portable/README.md.
• 🟡 UI drift — safety checks encode the current Claude Code UI (✳ glyph, ❯ prompt, ─ rules). Future UI changes may need the regexes updated in lib/safety.sh.
• 🟡 Injection signals as real user — the peer sees the DM as though the human typed it. Identify yourself in prose messages ("DM from <your-addr>: …") so the peer can reason about trust.