Why this matters
As AI agents move from experiments to everyday developer workflows, the friction comes less from model access and more from orchestration: knowing which agent is blocked, which is running, and restoring long-lived agent processes across sessions. Herdr treats agents as real terminal processes — not wrapped web views — and brings agent-aware persistence directly into the terminal you already use.
What Sets It Apart
- Real terminal panes, not rewritten views: agents run as genuine terminal processes, so you see their native output and can interact with them directly. This reduces surprises from synthetic UI layers and preserves interactive behaviors (TTY, editors, progress bars).
- Agent-aware multiplexer: the sidebar aggregates agent state (blocked, working, done, idle) via process-name and output heuristics plus optional socket-API integrations for more robust reporting. That makes scanning many agents quick and reliable.
- Session persistence and handoff: server/client separation lets you detach a client while agent processes keep running. Experimental handoff attempts to migrate live panes across upgrades, and named sessions isolate runtime state per workspace.
- Lightweight, terminal-first distribution: single Rust binary (no Electron), installable via script, Homebrew or releases. Works over SSH and interoperates with tmux, making it suitable for remote development and servers.
Who it's for & tradeoffs
Great fit if you: maintain multiple long-running agents or agent workflows and want to keep them visible and persistent inside your terminal; prefer direct terminal interaction over GUI dashboards; need simple remote/SSH attach and detach semantics without an Electron wrapper.
Look elsewhere if you: want a visual web dashboard with rich visualizations, user-friendly onboarding for non-terminal users, or need guaranteed cross-platform GUI clients (herdr targets macOS/Linux terminals and power users). The project relies on heuristics for agent state detection by default; for mission-critical orchestration, the socket-API integrations are recommended for explicit state reporting.
Where it fits
Herdr sits between classic terminal multiplexers (tmux) and GUI agent managers: it keeps the terminal-first workflows and persistence of tmux while adding agent-awareness and integrations usually found in web dashboards. For teams that already use terminals and SSH-centric workflows, it reduces context switching and preserves native CLI behaviors.
Practical notes
Expect a small runtime footprint and minimal dependencies, but plan to opt into official integrations for the most reliable agent state restoration. The dual AGPL/commercial licensing may influence adoption in some organizations; review licensing if your environment cannot comply with AGPL terms.
