I run a dozen Claude Code sessions at once. This tmux console tells me which one needs me

TL;DR — claude-tmux-sessions is a small set of tmux tools for running many Claude Code sessions in parallel. It answers three questions I kept asking myself: which session is waiting on me, what is everyone doing, and what do I do when one account runs out of quota? MIT, tmux + bash + python3, driven by Claude Code hooks.

How I use Claude Code

Some context first, or the design will look odd.

I use two Claude accounts to push several projects forward at the same time:

• One account per project. Each account has a 5-hour and a 7-day usage window. If one busy project shares an account with the others, it stalls them too. With an account per project, each has its own quota.
• One session per role inside an account. Algorithms, backend, frontend, testing: one session each, so each context holds only its own part of the work and doesn't drift.
• I only make decisions. I don't watch any one terminal. I go over when a session needs a yes/no, or when it has finished and I should look at the result.
• Memory lives in files. Project rules, hand-off notes and a dev log are in the repository, so switching accounts or sessions loses nothing.

That adds up to a lot of sessions open at once, more than one person can watch. tmux only manages windows; it has no idea what the Claude inside each window is doing. Hence this.

Four pieces

Status bar: who is waiting on you

Each session reports its state through Claude Code hooks, and the status bar counts them:

• ⏸ waiting for your confirmation (a permission prompt is open and Claude is idle) — the only state that rings and sends a notification;
• ✔ finished, and you haven't looked yet;
• ▶ running, nothing to do;
• ✓ finished, and you've seen it.

The four counts never move: a zero turns grey but keeps its place, so you can click from muscle memory. Click ⏸ to jump to the session that has waited longest; click ✔ to get a list of just the finished-but-unread ones:

That list is a tmux 3.7 floating pane, not display-popup, which is why clicking anywhere outside closes it — display-popup swallows clicks outside its box.

Picker: what is everyone doing

prefix + g lists every session, grouped by tmux session (for me, one per project), with a live view of the one under the cursor. Every row is numbered; type the number to jump. It behaves like an inbox: visiting a session marks it read, and quiet ones fold away by default, so the list shows only what needs you.

Sidebar: everything about this one session

Every Claude gets a sidebar on its right that is about this session only:

• Every turn. What you said and the start of the reply. Click a turn and the main pane scrolls to that turn's final answer. Turns before a /compact fold into one line. It reads the transcript file, not the screen.
• Quota. Context, 5-hour and 7-day bars. Grey until something runs well ahead of an even pace.
• Buttons. git (with the count of uncommitted files), files, refresh quota, switch account, close.

The git and files buttons open lazygit and yazi floating over the right 60 % of the window, so the Claude on the left doesn't re-wrap; click outside and they're gone:

Rule of thumb: global things go on the status bar, things about the current session go on the sidebar. The status bar is short on space, and this keeps both uncluttered.

Switch accounts: keep going when one runs out

Click ⇄ on the sidebar and the session exits, then comes back as claude --resume of the same session id under the other account. Same conversation, same context. There are guard rails: a session that is working is left alone; one with unsent text in its prompt is left alone (exiting would lose it); a window with agent-team teammates first gets a line typed to the lead asking it to wind the team down, and switches once they've exited.

Trade-offs I made on purpose

• Hooks, not screen scraping, for state. Sessions report their own state when it changes: accurate, no polling, no CPU. The screen is read only where there is no other way ("which turn is where", "is there unsent text").
• An inbox, not a dashboard. Things you've seen turn ✓ on their own and come back when that session does something new. Nobody maintains the list.
• Everything is clickable. I work mostly by voice and trackpad, so every segment and button takes a click. Keyboard shortcuts are there too.
• When in doubt, don't switch accounts. It skips and tells you why rather than risk losing anything.

The rest of my setup

The tmux console is one of four pieces. I also dictate almost every prompt with a push-to-talk voice tool (an LLM proofreads each transcript, and Claude adds the words it sees misheard to the vocabulary itself), and look back at usage and configuration in a local web dashboard. That's written up in docs/workbench.md.

Try it

git clone https://github.com/threedaycat/claude-tmux-sessions.git ~/projects/claude-tmux-sessions
~/projects/claude-tmux-sessions/install.sh --lang en

Then add one line to your tmux config, source-file ~/projects/claude-tmux-sessions/tmux/claude-tmux.conf, and put the status-bar segments into your own status line; the README walks through it.

Known limits, up front: I use it daily on macOS only (Linux is untested); you need a Nerd Font for the icons; and a few features read Claude Code's screen, so a Claude Code UI change may need a follow-up fix. Issues and PRs welcome.