tuic CLI

The tuic command line tool lets you control TUICommander from the terminal. It combines the best of VS Code's code CLI, Zed's editor integration, and tmux's session management into a single binary.

Installation

From the app: Settings > General > Command Line Interface > Install tuic CLI

First launch: TUICommander offers to install the CLI on first run.

From the CLI itself: tuic install-cli

The binary is installed to:

• macOS: /usr/local/bin/tuic (requires admin password)
• Linux: /usr/local/bin/tuic (requires sudo)
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\tuic.exe (no admin needed)

The CLI auto-updates silently when TUICommander starts — no manual update needed.

Opening Files and Repos

# Open a file (launches TUICommander if not running)
tuic file.rs

# Open at specific line and column
tuic file.rs:42
tuic file.rs:42:10
tuic open --goto file.rs:42

# Open the current directory as a repo (adds it to the sidebar and activates it)
tuic .
tuic /path/to/project

# Open with --wait (for use as $EDITOR)
tuic open --wait file.rs

# Diff two files
tuic diff old.rs new.rs

A directory is treated as a repo, not as a terminal: it lands in the sidebar and becomes the active repo. A folder TUICommander does not know yet is confirmed once in the app before it is added — after that, tuic . activates it silently. Use tuic new when what you want is a shell.

Using as $EDITOR

export EDITOR="tuic open --wait"
git commit  # opens commit message in TUICommander

Session Management

These commands mirror tmux semantics:

# List all sessions (short IDs; --json for scripts)
tuic ls
tuic ls --json

# Create a new session
tuic new
tuic new -n "my-session"
tuic new -n "build" /path/to/repo

# Create a session and run something in it
tuic run pnpm dev
tuic run -n "tests" cargo nextest run

# Send input to a session
tuic send <id-or-name> "make test" Enter

# Capture session output
tuic capture <id-or-name>
tuic capture <id-or-name> -n 50          # last 50 lines
tuic capture <id-or-name> --format raw

# Kill a session
tuic kill <id-or-name>

# Resize a session
tuic resize <id-or-name> 120x40

# Pause/resume output
tuic pause <id-or-name>
tuic resume <id-or-name>

Session targets accept full UUIDs, ID prefixes (the short ID tuic ls prints), exact names, or a name prefix — case-insensitive. An ambiguous target is rejected rather than guessed.

Sending keys

Each argument is either a key name or literal text — matched whole, never as a substring, so tuic send build "Enter the room" types the sentence instead of pressing Return mid-word. Adjacent literals are joined with a single space.

Key names: Enter, Space, Tab, Escape, BSpace, Up, Down, Left, Right, Home, End, PageUp, PageDown, and any C-<letter> (C-c, C-d, C-u, …).

Agent Orchestration

# Spawn an AI agent (the prompt is required — the agent starts on it)
tuic agent spawn claude "review the failing tests"
tuic agent spawn codex "add a changelog entry" --repo /path/to/repo

# List running agents
tuic agent ls

# Send a message to an agent
tuic agent send <id> "fix the tests"

tmux Compatibility

tuic can act as a drop-in replacement for tmux. When invoked as tmux (via symlink), it translates tmux commands to TUICommander equivalents.

Setting Up the Alias

# Create tmux -> tuic symlink
tuic alias

# Remove the alias (restores original tmux if installed)
tuic alias --remove

Supported tmux Commands

When invoked as tmux, the following commands are supported:

tmux Command	Behavior
tmux	Create new session in cwd
tmux new-session -s name	Create named session
tmux list-sessions	List sessions
tmux kill-session -t target	Kill session
tmux kill-server	Kill all sessions
tmux send-keys -t target "cmd" Enter	Send input
tmux capture-pane -t target	Capture output
tmux resize-pane -t target -x 120 -y 40	Resize
tmux attach-session	Focus TUICommander window
tmux has-session -t target	Check if session exists (exit code)

Key names are translated: Enter, Space, Tab, Escape, C-c, C-d, C-z, etc.

System Commands

# Check TUICommander status — version, session/agent counts, and which
# sessions are waiting on you right now
tuic status

# Install CLI to system PATH
tuic install-cli
tuic install-cli --path /custom/path

# Create/remove tmux alias
tuic alias
tuic alias --remove

IPC Architecture

The CLI communicates with TUICommander via IPC:

• macOS/Linux: Unix domain socket at ~/.config/com.tuic.commander/mcp.sock
• Windows: Named pipe at \\.\pipe\tuicommander-mcp

Override with $TUIC_SOCKET environment variable.

If TUICommander is not running, tuic open and tuic new will launch it automatically.