| name | tmux-pane |
| description | Drive the pre-configured workbench and document-viewer tmux panes alongside this conversation. Use for long-running processes, monitoring, parallel work, or displaying files for visual review. |
tmux-pane
Two tmux panes are pre-configured per Claude session by the SessionStart
hook (~/.claude/tmux-panes-setup.sh). They are namespaced by this
Claude pane's tmux id (${TMUX_PANE#%}) so concurrent Claude sessions
in other windows don't collide:
- Workbench — long-running processes, log tails, builds, tests.
Title:
claude-workbench-<tag>. Pane ID in /tmp/claude-tmux-pane-<tag>.
- Viewer — display files, markdown, diffs, images via
bat, glow,
git diff, less, etc.
Title: claude-viewer-<tag>. Pane ID in /tmp/claude-viewer-pane-<tag>.
The SessionStart additionalContext in your system prompt always
contains the resolved pane_id values for this session — prefer those
over recomputing.
Recover the pane IDs
TAG="${TMUX_PANE#%}"
WB=$(cat "/tmp/claude-tmux-pane-${TAG}")
VW=$(cat "/tmp/claude-viewer-pane-${TAG}")
Verify they're alive (scoped to this window only):
tmux list-panes -F '#{pane_id} #{pane_title}' \
| grep -E "claude-workbench-${TAG}|claude-viewer-${TAG}"
Never look up panes by the bare titles claude-workbench /
claude-viewer — those don't exist any more, and matching across
windows would pull in another Claude session's panes.
If a pane is missing (e.g. user closed it, or you're not in tmux),
re-run the hook script: ~/.claude/tmux-panes-setup.sh.
Operate a pane
tmux send-keys -t "$WB" '<command>' Enter # send a command
tmux capture-pane -t "$WB" -p -S -50 # read last 50 lines
tmux send-keys -t "$WB" C-c # interrupt
Same for $VW.
When to use which
- Workbench:
tail -f, npm run dev, cargo watch, aws-vault exec ... just smoke-test, anything that runs for a while.
- Viewer:
bat README.md, glow PRD-09.md, git diff main...HEAD, less <(curl ...). Use it to put a document in front of the user without dumping it into the transcript.
Rules
- Always read pane output after sending a command to confirm it worked.
- Don't kill the panes — they're persistent across the session by design.
- Don't split new panes yourself; reuse what the hook gave you.
- If
$ARGUMENTS are provided, run them in the workbench as the first command.
$ARGUMENTS
