herdr/Q/Can herdr show the current session name, and how do I switch sessions?

• Can herdr show the current session name, and how do I switch sessions?

  • AI Answer

    • Checked against herdr 0.8.0 (the installed build) and the herdrdev/herdr source at preview-2026-08-04-…-78-g06ca0baa.
    • Short answer: No on the name — nothing in 0.8.0 renders the session anywhere, and the ui.window_title template that has since landed on main has no {session} token. Switching is CLI-only: detach, then herdr session attach <name>. herdr's own advice is to reach for workspaces instead, which are the real analogue to tmux sessions.

    • Showing the session name

      • No UI surface carries it. The navigator, sidebar, tab bar, and status line all render workspace / tab / pane / agent. The sidebar row tokens are state_icon, state_text, workspace, tab, pane, agent, terminal_title, terminal_title_stripped, and custom $name values reported through herdr pane report-metadata — there is no session token among them.
      • ui.window_title exists but has no session token. It writes the outer terminal's title (OSC 0), which is what window managers show in title, tab, and group bars. It defaults to "{hostname}: {workspace}", accepts {hostname}, {workspace}, {tab}, {pane}, and {terminal_title}, and takes "" to leave the outer title alone. It renders on the server, so {hostname} names the host the panes run on even when attaching from a remote client.
      • And it is not in 0.8.0 yet. herdr config check against a 0.8.0 binary answers unknown config key ui.window_title; ignoring key, and the same for ui.tab_bar_right. Both are absent from the 0.8.0 and the current preview docs snapshots — they are on main, headed for a later release. 0.8.0 does not write the outer terminal title at all; src/terminal_effects.rs does not exist at the v0.8.0 tag.
      • Workarounds that work today on 0.8.0:
        • Name the workspace after the session. workspace is the one identifier every surface already shows, and it is what {workspace} will resolve to once ui.window_title ships.
        • Derive the session in the shell prompt from $HERDR_SOCKET_PATH, which every pane gets: the default session is ~/.config/herdr/herdr.sock, a named one is ~/.config/herdr/sessions/<name>/herdr.sock. $HERDR_SESSION is only inherited from the server process — present for named sessions, unset on the default — while HERDR_ENV, HERDR_SOCKET_PATH, HERDR_WORKSPACE_ID, HERDR_TAB_ID, and HERDR_PANE_ID are injected deliberately.
        • Set the outer terminal title yourself before launching, from a wrapper that emits OSC 2 alongside herdr session attach <name>. Nothing in 0.8.0 will overwrite it.
      • Once it ships: ui.tab_bar_right takes a command entry that runs on an interval with the herdr environment inherited, so ${HERDR_SESSION:-default} in the right edge of the tab bar becomes the direct answer — no {session} token needed.

    • Switching sessions

      • The whole surface is the CLI: herdr session list [--json], herdr session attach <name>, herdr session stop <name>, herdr session delete <name>. Launch-time equivalents are herdr --session <name> and the HERDR_SESSION environment variable. Use default as the name when you need to address the default session explicitly.
      • herdr session attach <name> is not an in-place switch. It runs the same code path as --session <name> — it sets the session name and then launches or attaches a client. Moving between sessions means detaching with prefix+q and running the attach command from the shell.
      • There is no keybinding for it. prefix+g is labelled "session navigator" in the keybind help, but it navigates workspaces, tabs, and panes inside the current session. Nothing corresponds to tmux's prefix+s session tree or switch-client.
      • Sessions are heavier than tmux sessions by design. Each is a separate server with its own socket, config directory, and persisted runtime state. The docs are explicit: "Use workspaces first. Use named sessions when you need completely separate panes, sockets, and persisted runtime state."
      • Workspaces are the affordance to use. prefix+shift+n new, prefix+shift+w rename, prefix+shift+d close, prefix+g navigator, prefix+b sidebar toggle — plus clicking them in the sidebar, which rolls up agent state per workspace. That is where the switching ergonomics went.