Adapters

Adapters teach gmux how to interpret specific tools. When you launch a session, gmux automatically detects what you’re running and applies the right adapter.

What adapters do

An adapter watches the terminal output of your process and reports structured status to the sidebar:

• Working — the tool is busy (cyan pulsing dot)
• Idle — the tool is waiting (no dot)

Without an adapter, gmux still tracks whether the process is alive — but with one, you get meaningful at-a-glance status like “thinking” or “42/50 passed”.

Automatic detection

You don’t configure adapters. gmux recognizes tools by their command name:

gmux claude        # → claude adapter
gmux codex         # → codex adapter
gmux pi            # → pi adapter
gmux bash          # → shell adapter (fallback)
gmux make build    # → shell adapter (fallback)

If no specific adapter matches, the shell adapter handles it.

Built-in adapters

Shell (default)

Always active. Tracks terminal title changes so your shell’s PS1 or tool-set window titles appear in the sidebar.

Claude Code

Active when claude is installed. Provides:

• Live status detection (working while assistant responds, idle when done)
• Session titles from conversation files or Claude’s auto-generated titles
• Resumable sessions — exited sessions stay in the sidebar, click to resume via claude --resume

See Claude Code integration for details.

Codex

Active when codex is installed. Provides:

• Live status detection (working while agent responds, idle on task completion)
• Session titles from your first prompt (system context filtered out)
• Resumable sessions — exited sessions stay in the sidebar, click to resume via codex resume

See Codex integration for details.

pi

Active when pi is installed. Provides:

• Live status detection (thinking, waiting for input, etc.)
• Session titles from conversation files
• Resumable sessions — exited sessions stay in the sidebar, click to resume

See pi integration for details.

Self-reporting

Any process can report its own status without a custom adapter. gmux sets $GMUX_SOCKET in the child’s environment:

curl -X PUT --unix-socket "$GMUX_SOCKET" \
  http://localhost/status \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"label": "building", "working": true}'

Writing an adapter

Adapters are Go files in packages/adapter/adapters/. See Writing an Adapter for the recipe, or Adapter Architecture for the runtime model.