tmux-snaglord

Reign over your tmux scrollback.

Stop scrolling through walls of terminal text. tmux-snaglord turns your tmux scrollback into a structured, searchable list of commands and their outputs.

• Find any command or output instantly with fuzzy search
• Copy clean output without the prompt or surrounding noise
• Extract JSON (syntax highlighted) and file paths automatically
• Paste directly into another pane. Perfect for feeding context to LLM agents

Install · Quick start · Usage · Configuration

Why not tmux copy-mode?

Tmux copy-mode requires you to scroll, visually locate boundaries, and manually select text. Command and output boundaries blur together. tmux-snaglord solves this by detecting prompts and treating each command + output as a single selectable block.

Features

• Command blocks: Each command and its output is a single selectable unit—no manual boundary selection
• Cross-pane workflow: View history from any pane, paste back to where you started. Switch source panes with ; or search all visible panes at once
• Three viewing modes (Tab to switch):
  • Commands: Browse commands and their outputs
  • JSON: Auto-detects and extracts JSON with syntax highlighting
  • Paths: Extracts file paths and URLs for quick copying
• Fuzzy search: Filter through history with /
• Multi-select: Select multiple blocks with space, copy all at once
• Zero-config for standard prompts: Auto-detects bash, zsh, fish, starship, oh-my-zsh. Custom regex for others

Install

Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew install raine/tap/tmux-snaglord

Cargo

cargo install tmux-snaglord

Quick start

1. Run tmux-snaglord init in a tmux pane with some command history
2. The tool auto-detects your shell prompt and saves it to config
3. Add a keybinding to ~/.tmux.conf:

# Open in a popup (tmux 3.2+)
bind-key C-y popup -E -w 60% -h 60% "tmux-snaglord"

See Prompt detection if auto-detection doesn't work.

Use with CLI-based LLM agents

When working with Claude Code, Aider, or similar tools, you often need to share command output from another pane:

1. Run commands in your working pane
2. Switch to the pane running your LLM agent
3. Open tmux-snaglord and press ; to load history from your previous pane
4. Select the output and press p to paste directly into the conversation

Usage

tmux-snaglord          # Run the TUI
tmux-snaglord init     # Auto-detect prompt and save to config
tmux-snaglord -t "%1"  # Target a specific pane

CLI options

Usage: tmux-snaglord [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -p, --prompt <REGEX>    Regex pattern to identify command prompts
      --preset <NAME>     Preset pattern name (bash, zsh, fish, robbyrussell, starship, dollar, hash)
  -t, --target <PANE>     Target tmux pane (e.g., "%0", "session:window.pane", or "previous")
  -m, --mode <MODE>       Start in specific view mode [possible values: commands, json, paths]
  -a, --all               Start in all-panes mode (search across all visible panes)

The special target previous captures the last active pane, useful when you want to run the tool from a different pane than the one you're inspecting.

Key bindings

Navigation

Selection & copying

Pane navigation

Use ; to cycle between viewing history from the current pane, the previous pane, or all visible panes in the window. Press a to jump directly to all-panes mode. Paste actions (p/P) always target the original pane where the tool was launched.

Search mode

Prompt detection

tmux-snaglord captures the visible content of your tmux pane and uses a regex pattern to find shell prompts. Each prompt marks the start of a new command, and everything until the next prompt is that command's output:

~/code % ls           ← prompt detected, "ls" is the command
file1.txt
file2.txt             ← output
~/code % cat file1.txt   ← next prompt, new command starts
hello world           ← output

If no commands are found, run tmux-snaglord init to auto-detect the best preset for your shell, or configure a custom pattern.

Note: Because this tool relies on regex pattern matching, detection accuracy depends on your prompt configuration. Heavily customized prompts or command output that resembles your prompt may cause incorrect parsing.

Configuration

You can persist preferences in ~/.config/tmux-snaglord/config.toml:

# Use a built-in preset
preset = "starship"

# OR define a custom regex (takes precedence)
# prompt = "^[/~].* % "

# Enable Nerd Font icons and Powerline glyphs (default: false)
# nerd_fonts = true

Presets

Related projects

• workmux — Git worktrees + tmux windows for parallel AI agent workflows
• claude-history — Search and view Claude Code conversation history with fzf