Teejay

Terminal Jockey - A tmux activity monitor for vibe coders

Teejay monitors multiple tmux panes you select yourself at once. Perfect for vibe coding with parallel AI agent sessions.

Here's a demo, though it's diffucult to tape a multisession vibe marathon.

Why

We want to be free in our Tmux use, but it's obvious that in this vibecoding age we want to use tmux for running parallel agent sessions. Teejay does not force you a coding workflow. Teejay serves as a watch list for panes which the user wants to monitor.

Features

• All watched panes in a list with live status (busy/waiting for input)
• Multi-column layout mode for overview of many panes at once
• Preview panel (side or below columns when space allows)
• Quick-answer popup: respond to agent prompts without switching panes
• Claude Code transcript-based prompt recognition (structured, version-resistant)
• ? indicator for panes waiting with an actionable question
• Recency color gradient on waiting indicators (bright→dim green over time)
• Activity sort: order panes by most recently active
• Picker mode: use as a pane selector that quits after switching
• Detect process (agent) and show as extra info
• Switch to tmux session and window and focus pane
• Add panes by running tj add or by browsing sessions→panes
• Remove panes from the watch list
• Configure sound and notification alerts per pane
• Screen-scraping fallback for non-Claude agents

Installation

Nix

Run directly without installing:

nix run github:mipmip/teejay

Or enter a development shell:

nix develop github:mipmip/teejay

From source

go build -o tj ./cmd/tj

Usage

# Launch the TUI
tj

# Launch in multi-column mode with activity sort
tj --columns --sort-activity

# Launch as a pane picker (Enter switches and quits)
tj --picker --columns --sort-activity

# Launch with sound alerts enabled, notifications disabled
tj --sound --no-notify

# Show help
tj --help

# Add current pane to watchlist (run from within tmux)
tj add

# Remove current pane from watchlist
tj del

# Create initial config file with interactive setup
tj init

# Use custom config and watchlist paths
tj --config /path/to/config.yaml --watchlist /path/to/watchlist.json

CLI Flags

General

Flag	Description
-h, --help	Show help message
-v, --version	Show version
-c, --config <path>	Path to config file
-w, --watchlist <path>	Path to watchlist file

Alerts

Flag	Description
--sound	Enable sound alerts
--no-sound	Disable sound alerts (overrules per-pane settings)
--notify	Enable desktop notifications
--no-notify	Disable desktop notifications (overrules per-pane settings)

Display

Flag	Description
--columns	Start in multi-column layout
--sort-activity	Start with activity sort (busy first, then recently finished)
--sort-watchlist	Start with watchlist order (default)
--recency-color	Enable recency color gradient on indicators
--no-recency-color	Disable recency color gradient
--preview	Show pane preview panel (default)
--no-preview	Hide pane preview panel

Mode

Flag	Description
--picker	Picker mode: Enter switches to pane and quits
--scan	Scan for agent panes at startup

Keybindings

Key	Action
↑/k, ↓/j	Navigate up/down in pane list
←/h, →/l	Navigate between columns (multi-column mode)
/	Filter panes by name/session/window/command
Enter	Switch to selected pane (quits in picker mode)
Space	Open quick-answer popup for waiting panes
v	Toggle layout: default (list+preview) ↔ multi-column
p	Toggle preview panel on/off
o	Toggle sort: watchlist order ↔ activity order
a	Browse and add panes
s	Scan for agent panes and auto-add
c	Configure selected pane (name, alerts)
e	Edit/rename selected pane
d	Delete selected pane from watchlist
D	Delete all panes from watchlist (with confirmation)
Esc	Dismiss messages
q, Ctrl+C	Quit

Configuration

Teejay can be configured via ~/.config/teejay/config.yaml. Copy the example file to get started:

cp config.example.yaml ~/.config/teejay/config.yaml

Configuration Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
detection.idle_timeout	duration	2s	How long content must be unchanged before marking a pane as "waiting". Set to 0s to disable idle detection.
detection.prompt_endings	string[]	[]	Global prompt endings - characters that indicate a shell prompt when found at the end of the last non-empty line.
detection.waiting_strings	string[]	[]	Global waiting strings - substrings that indicate the pane is waiting for user input.
detection.apps.<name>.prompt_endings	string[]		App-specific prompt endings for a named application.
detection.apps.<name>.waiting_strings	string[]		App-specific waiting strings for a named application.
alerts.sound_on_ready	bool	false	Global default: play sound when a pane becomes ready. Per-pane settings override this.
alerts.notify_on_ready	bool	false	Global default: send desktop notification when a pane becomes ready. Per-pane settings override this.
display.recency_color	bool	true	Color gradient on waiting indicators based on how recently the pane was active.
display.sort_by_activity	bool	false	Default sort order: true for activity sort, false for watchlist order.
display.layout_mode	string	"default"	Initial layout: "default" (list+preview) or "columns" (multi-column).
display.picker_mode	bool	false	Picker mode: Enter switches to pane and quits.
display.show_preview	bool	true	Show pane preview panel. Set to false to hide preview in both layouts.
display.scan_on_start	bool	false	Scan for agent panes at startup and auto-add them to the watchlist.

Note: When a pane is running a configured application (matched by process name), only the app-specific patterns are used - global patterns are ignored. This allows precise detection for each tool without interference.

Built-in App Defaults

Teejay includes default patterns for common AI coding tools:

• claude: Detects ? for shortcuts
• aider: Detects (Y)es/(N)o
• codex: Detects [Y/n]
• opencode: Detects Continue?

Adding Custom App Patterns

detection:
  apps:
    myapp:
      prompt_endings:
        - ">"
      waiting_strings:
        - "Press Enter to continue"

Tech Stack

• Go + Bubbletea/Lipgloss for TUI