I like it because it's a terminal first workspace and has bindings to use it programatically. Tried Superset and Intent, but they seemed like way overkill / unintuitive to use agents like I prefer. I use WezTerm as a terminal, so being able to have herdr exist in that application (not having another app to keep track of) as a tab really helps me stay in flow. Over the last few weeks, Herdr has given me the vibe of "works out of the box, but is highly customizable", and I think that power-user angle really sold me.
Oh, and I didn't know how much I'd love session persistence. I already use tmux for every other terminal process, so it being built in to herdr and a focused feature (server start, detach, stop) is nice to see.
I also tried Herdr. But I'm already using Aerospace, which makes MacOS window management a breeze and I don't need the remote session management stuff so the benefit wasn't quite there for me. It is a very thoughtful project so I did borrow lots of its features (Agents working now get an animation in my sketchy bar, a soft chime to indicate a finishes status).
> Why? Because it has more/better features. Or you mean something else?
I mean something else. Zoom out, why do people need, or want, a tool like herdr?
What has led people to this point? Is it because they need terminal multiplexing to spawn agents, instead of using built-in subagents? Do they like cute sheep icons? What made having multiple terminals open unappealing? Is it the built-in alerting when attention is needed? Is it only applicable to people running their agents on remote machines?
When I look at these kinds of tools, that is the question I can't answer because I suspect I haven't run into the pain points they address yet, despite running multiple LLM sessions in multiple projects simultaneously.
1) Built-in sub agents assume you use a single AI agent. Some people use multiple, so they need separate terminals/processes by definition. Even if you use the same agent sometimes you have different security boundaries. Think also the needs for a consultant working with many customers at once.
2)Multiple-open terminals. When that number passes 5-7 for me, then yes I don't like clicking on each one of those manually to see where my attention is needed. Herdr (and similar tools) show exactly what is working and what stalled.
3) No I use herdr locally mostly right now. But since it is just ssh I like the fact that you can run it from anywhere. I haven't done it yet, but I imagine you could open a herdr session from a steamdeck to a remote server to debug somthing
Another thing I like on herdr is easy work trees. Sure you can do it manually with git commands, or ask the agent itself to use a new worktree, but just having workrees with a single click and a visual tree/children hierarchy was the killer feature for making me look at herdr at the first place.
Yes technically you can do the same thing with just many terminals and custom scripts. But it is the same question of why Dropbox sells when you could do the same thing with cvs/ftp :-)
Totally fair, maker of cmux here. We fixed many RAM usage issues (latest version is 0.64.22), and also added an activity monitor to see how much RAM/CPU coding agents are taking.
My cmux has been running with 136 workspaces and 218 terminals, and has been hovering around 5.7 GB. Granted, the theoretical RAM minimum for this number of terminals is around 1-1.5 GB before real scrollback, so we definitely have more work to do.
Thanks, good to know. I installed the update and will check it out again.
If it helps, the main reason I love cmux is how can I manage my projects into folders, I have fast access to all the projects which made my life a lot easier working in the terminal. I can also have coding, test, monitoring spilt in one tab per project.
I use cmux because I like tabbed terminals on macOS grouped by project, saves messing with our daft window management.
What is it that makes herdr et al so popular with LLM users?