PUBLIC TERMINAL CIRCULAR // REV 02.27.26

TMUX INSTITUTE

Ubiquitous, consistent, persistent. A moldable environment to make your own.

TMUX

Tmux is the Terminal Multiplexer.

It is old, reliable software that has stood the test of time.

By learning tmux, you unlock:

  • multiple terminals, on a single screen
  • a persistent processes, on any machine
  • a keyboard-driven flows, access and modify everything you see using only the keyboard
  • a scriptable system, change any part of your environment, while it's running, to fit you like a glove

THE BIG PICTURE

Before we get started, look at how keypresses are processed by your system:

ROUTING NOTE

  • KEY EVENTS: Keyboard scan codes are normalized by the terminal emulator.
  • PTY STREAM: Ghostty writes the input stream into the tmux client channel.
  • TARGET PANE: tmux resolves the active pane and forwards stdin there.
  • STDIN: the shell process consumes the bytes and executes.

DISPATCHES

#1 / SPLITTING PANES

Build your first reliable split-pane control room and lock in operator habits.