You can write a small shell script that launches tmux with the required programs. I have the following in a shell script that I call dev-tmux. A dev environment:

#!/bin/sh
tmux new-session -d  vim 
tmux split-window -v  ipython 
tmux split-window -h
tmux new-window  mutt 
tmux -2 attach-session -d

So everytime I want to launch my favorite dev environment I can just do

$ dev-tmux

I was trying to create a complex grid of panes and had to deal with switching and splitting panes over and over again. Here are my learnings:

tmux new-session ;

Gets you started with a new session. To split it horizontal or vertical use split-window -h or -v subsequently, like that:

tmux new-session ; split-window -v ; split-window -h ;

Creates 3 panes, like this:

------------
|          |
|----------|
|    |     |
------------

To run commands in that panes, just add them with the send-keys my-command command and C-m which executes it:

tmux new-session ; 
  send-keys  tail -f /var/log/monitor.log  C-m ; 
  split-window -v ; 
  split-window -h ; 
  send-keys  top  C-m ; 

And the resulting session should look like that.

------------
|  tail    |
|----------|
|    | top |
------------

Now I tried to again sub-divide the bottom left pane, so switching either back using last-pane, or in more complex windows, with the select-pane -t 1 where 1 is the number of the pane in order created starting with 0.

tmux new-session ; 
  send-keys  tail -f /var/log/monitor.log  C-m ; 
  split-window -v ; 
  split-window -h ; 
  send-keys  top  C-m ; 
  select-pane -t 1 ; 
  split-window -v ; 
  send-keys  weechat  C-m ;

Does that. Basicaly knowing your way around with split-window and select-pane is all you need. It s also handy to pass with -p 75 a percentage size of the pane created by split-window to have more control over the size of the panes.

tmux new-session ; 
  send-keys  tail -f /var/log/monitor.log  C-m ; 
  split-window -v -p 75 ; 
  split-window -h -p 30 ; 
  send-keys  top  C-m ; 
  select-pane -t 1 ; 
  split-window -v ; 
  send-keys  weechat  C-m ;

Which results in a session looking like that

------------------
|      tail      |
|----------------|
|          | top |
|----------|     |
| weechat  |     |
------------------

You can source different sessions from your .tmux.conf like so:

# initialize sessions
bind S source-file ~/.tmux/session1 
bind s source-file ~/.tmux/session2

And then format the sessions as you require:

#session1
new  -s SessionName -n WindowName Command
neww -n foo/bar foo
splitw -v -p 50 -t 0 bar
selectw -t 1 
selectp -t 0

This would open 2 windows, the second of which would be named foo/bar and would be split vertically in half (50%) with foo running above bar. Focus would be in window 2 (foo/bar), top pane (foo).

You can then start your preferred tmux session (in this case, session1) with PrefixShifts

Use tmuxinator - it allows you to have multiple sessions configured, and you can choose which one to launch at any given time. You can launch commands in particular windows or panes and give titles to windows. Here is an example use with developing Django applications.

Sample config file:

# ~/.tmuxinator/project_name.yml
# you can make as many tabs as you wish...

project_name: Tmuxinator
project_root: ~/code/rails_project
socket_name: foo # Not needed. Remove to use default socket
rvm: 1.9.2@rails_project
pre: sudo /etc/rc.d/mysqld start
tabs:
  - editor:
      layout: main-vertical
      panes:
        - vim
        - #empty, will just run plain bash
        - top
  - shell: git pull
  - database: rails db
  - server: rails s
  - logs: tail -f logs/development.log
  - console: rails c
  - capistrano:
  - server: ssh me@myhost

See the README at the above link for a full explanation.

:~$ tmux new-session "tmux source-file ~/session1"  

session1

neww
split-window -v  ipython   
split-window -h  
new-window  mutt   

create an alias in .bashrc

:~$ echo `alias tmux_s1= tmux new-session "tmux source-file ~/session1" ` >>~/.bashrc  
:~$ . ~/.bashrc  
:~$ tmux_s1  

have a look @ https://github.com/remiprev/teamocil

you can specify your structure using YAML

windows:
  - name: sample-window
    splits:
      - cmd: vim
      - cmd:
        - ipython
        width: 50
      - cmd:
        height: 25

This script starts a session with the name "e" and three windows

#!/bin/sh 
tmux new-session -s e   -n etc -d  cd /etc; bash -i 
tmux new-window  -t e:1 -n home    cd ~; bash -i 
tmux new-window  -t e:2 -n log    cd /var/log; bash -i 

tmux select-window -t e:1
tmux -2 attach-session -t e

From my "get.all" script, which I invoke each morning to run a bunch of subsequent "get.XXX" jobs to refresh the software that I track. Some of them are auto-quitting. Others require more interaction once the get has finished (like asking to build emacs).

#!/bin/sh
tmux att -t get ||
tmux 
  new -s get -n capp ; 
  send-keys  get.capp  C-m ; 
  neww -n emacs ; 
  send-keys  get.emacs  C-m ; 
  neww -n git ; 
  send-keys  get.git  C-m ; 
  neww -n mini ; 
  send-keys  get.mini  C-m ; 
  neww -n port ; 
  send-keys  get.port  C-m ; 
  neww -n rakudo ; 
  send-keys  get.rakudo  C-m ; 
  neww -n neil ; 
  send-keys  get.neil && get.neil2 && exit  C-m ; 
  neww -n red ; 
  send-keys  get.red && exit  C-m ; 
  neww -n cpan ; 
  send-keys  get.cpan && exit  C-m ; 
  selectw -t emacs

If you just want to split screen on 2 panes (say horizontally), you can run this command (no tmux or shell scripts required):

tmux new-session ; split-window -h ;

You screen will look like this:

[ks@localhost ~]$                      │[ks@localhost ~]$ 
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
                                       │
[10] 0:ks@localhost:~*                  "localhost.localdomain" 19:51 31-янв-16

First i had the approach from @jasonwryan but if you have more then 2 configs, it can get confusing.

So i created an alias function:

tmx () {
    tmux "$2" source-file "$HOME/.tmux/$1.conf";
}

In ~/.tmux/ i have multiple sessions for many uses. For example i work for different companies that have each another dev environment. So with the alias function above i can simply call: tmx company1 and load the config i need.

Update: The purpose of "$2" after the tmux command is, that you are able to pass additional tmux args.

And this is how I do it:

#!/bin/bash

function has-session {
  tmux has-session -t name_of_my_session 2>/dev/null
}

if has-session ; then
  echo "Session already exists"
else
  cd /path/to/my/project
  tmux new-session -d -s name_of_my_session  vim 
  tmux split-window -h -p 40 start_web_server
  tmux split-window -v
  tmux attach-session -d -t name_of_my_session
fi

I have one file for each of my project. Also you can group them to have some for work some for hobby projects.

Also you can move it to ~/bin folder, add it to PATH and give tmux_my_awesome_project name. Then you will be able to run it from each place.

You can use tmux hooks to execute commands when a new session is created. Specifically, this is achieved using the session-created hook.

For example, to split the screen three ways with top running in the lower right you can add the following line to your ~/.tmux.conf file:

set-hook -g session-created  split -h ; split -v top 

The advantage of this method is that you don t have to run tmux in any special way (i.e., shell script or alias) to get the desired result. You can also combine this with tmux new-session -A -s mysession described in this other answer such that the hook commands are only run when you first create the session and not on subsequent attachments.

This feature was added by d15d54c2c back in 2016. The first release to include it is is 2.4.

Try bro, it is a project bootstrapper.

It provides easy apis to interact with tmux.

It looks something like this :

#!/bin/sh
# @ project_name/tasks/init.sh
structure project_name
  window editor
    run  vim 
  window terminal
    run  echo happy coding ... 
focus editor
connect project_name

To launch a project all one needs to do is run following command -

bro start <project_name>

Checkout the screencast below, it shows how to get started with bro and use its tmux api.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/8296449/50532502-2cf3e400-0b6e-11e9-84af-c5f77a04e5cc.gif

There is a tmux plugin for this.

Check out tmux-resurrect

Restore tmux environment after system restart.

Tmux is great, except when you have to restart the computer. You lose all the running programs, working directories, pane layouts etc. There are helpful management tools out there, but they require initial configuration and continuous updates as your workflow evolves or you start new projects.

tmux-resurrect saves all the little details from your tmux environment so it can be completely restored after a system restart (or when you feel like it). No configuration is required. You should feel like you never quit tmux.

Or tmux-continuum

Features:

• continuous saving of tmux environment
• automatic tmux start when computer/server is turned on
• automatic restore when tmux is started

This works for me. Creating 5 windows with the given names and auto selecting to the home window.

new  -n home
neww -n emacs
neww -n puppet
neww -n haskell
neww -n ruby
selectw -t 1

smux.py allows you to simply list the commands you want in each pane, prefixed with a line containing three dashes.

Here s an example smux file that starts three panes.

---
echo "This is pane 1."
---
cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/hq6/smux
cd smux
less smux.py
---
man tmux

If you put this in a file called Sample.smux, you can then run the following to launch.

pip3 install smux.py
smux.py Sample.smux

Full disclaimer: I am the author of smux.py.

tmuxp support JSON or YAML session configuration and a python API. A simple tmuxp configuration file to create a new session in YAML syntax is:

session_name: 2-pane-vertical
windows:
  - window_name: my test window
    panes:
      - pwd
      - pwd

The plugin tmux-continuum will auto save your tmux session and load it the next time tmux starts, should be easier to setup than some of the custom script solutions here.

Features:

• continuous saving of tmux environment
• automatic tmux start when computer/server is turned on
• automatic restore when tmux is started

To save your session on demand you can use the tmux-resurrect plugin. tmux-resurrect is also required to run tmux-continuum

tmux-resurrect saves all the little details from your tmux environment so it can be completely restored after a system restart (or when you feel like it). No configuration is required. You should feel like you never quit tmux.

To simply open tmux with multiple panes and run some commands, I created the following bash file:

#!/bin/bash
tmux split-window -v -p 30 -c ~/path/to/folder1
tmux split-window -h -p 66 -c ~/path/to/folder2
tmux split-window -h -p 50  mongod 

Run the bash file to get the following:

-----------------------------------
|                                 |
|---------------------------------|
|  folder1  | folder2  |  mongod  |
-----------------------------------

I know my solution is quite similar to others, but I couldn t find any that had exactly what I was looking for :

• I want to open titled windows at specific paths
• I want to have as many windows and panes as I want
• I want to run arbitrary commands in each of the panes, persisted in history
• I want to focus the window I want at the end of the script
• I want being able to spawn this very quickly
• I want it to be easy to maintain

For my project named johndoe, I create a johndoe.conf file which is essentially a bash script, somewhere in my configs (~/.config/tmux/tmux-sessions/johndoe.conf).

This file is simple to maintain because it does not have a myriad of everywhere like I saw in other answers:

# Create a new session named johndoe, with a first window named Main 
# at the specified starting path.
# The -d is for detached mode, which allows me to continue defining the rest of the session 
# before attaching to it. Without -d, tmux would open the client right away and
# ignore the rest of the session definition
tmux new -d -s johndoe -n  Main  -c ~/dev/own/johndoe
# Simulate the user entering some docker command in the first window available 
# in the target session named (-t) johndoe
tmux send -t johndoe  docker compose up -d  Enter

# Create a new window in the target session, with the title  UI run 
tmux neww -t pers -n  UI run  -c ~/dev/own/johndoe/front-end
# Simulate user entering a command to the first pane
tmux send -t pers: UI run.0   git status --short  Enter 
# Split this window horizontally
tmux split-window -t pers: UI run  -h -c ~/dev/own/johndoe/front-end
# Simulate user entering a command to the second pane in this window
tmux send -t pers: UI run.1   npm run dev  Enter 

tmux neww -t johndoe -n  API run  -c ~/dev/own/johndoe/back-end/Api
tmux send -t johndoe: API run   dotnet run --no-build  Enter

# Focus the first window
tmux select-window -t johndoe: Main 
# Attach the current terminal to the only session available 
# (you might want to add "-t johndoe" here if you need several sessions running in parallel)
tmux a -d

2. I create a bash/zsh alias to source this session configuration :

alias tmuxjohndoe= . ~/.config/tmux/tmux-sessions/johndoe.conf 

3. I spend just the right amount of debugging time figuring out that I need to give execution permissions to the johndoe.conf file :-)

4. Now from anywhere, I just run tmuxjohndoe !

I ve create this script. It does not need tmuxinator, ruby or others. It is just a bash script, configurable:

A file named config should contains something like this:

combo=()
combo+=( logs   cd /var/log; clear; pwd )
combo+=( home   cd ~; clear; pwd )

and the bash code should be:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -r config ]; then
    echo ""
    echo "Loading custom file"
    . config
else
    . config.dist
fi

tmux start-server

window=0
windownumber=-1

for i in "${combo[@]}"; do

    if [ $((window%2)) == 0 ]; then
        name=${i}
        ((windownumber++))
    else
        command=${i}
    fi

    if [ ${combo[0]} == "${i}" ]; then
        tmux new-session -d -s StarTmux -n "${name}"
    else
        if [ $((window%2)) == 0 ]; then
            tmux new-window -tStarTmux:$windownumber -n "${name}"
        fi
    fi

    if [ $((window%2)) == 1 ]; then
        tmux send-keys -tStarTmux:$windownumber "${command}" C-m
    fi

    ((window++))
done

tmux select-window -tStarTmux:0
tmux attach-session -d -tStarTmux

I just tried using all the ideas on this page and I didn t like any of them. I just wanted a solution that started tmux with a specific set of windows when my terminal opened. I also wanted it to be idempotent, i.e. opening a new terminal window takes over the tmux session from the previous one.

The above solutions often tend to open multiple tmux sessions and I want just one. First, I added this to my ~/.bash_profile:

tmux start-server
if [[ -z "$TMUX" ]]
then
  exec tmux attach -d -t default
fi

then I added the following to my ~/.tmux.conf:

new -s default -n emacs /usr/local/bin/emacs
neww -n shell /usr/local/bin/bash
neww -n shell /usr/local/bin/bash
selectw -t 1

now every time I start a terminal or start tmux or whatever, I either reattach to my existing desired setup (the session named default), or create a new session with that setup.

You should specify it in your tmux config file (~/.tmux.conf), for example:

new mocp
neww mutt

new -d
neww
neww

(opens one session with 2 windows with mocp launched in first and mutt in second, and another detached session with 3 empty windows).

Use the following example:

#!/bin/bash

# Create a new TMUX session named "my_session" with a single window
tmux new-session -d -s my_session -n my_window

# Split the window horizontally into two panes
tmux split-window -h

# Split the second pane vertically into two additional panes
tmux select-pane -t 1
tmux split-window -v

# Rename the panes for easier identification
tmux select-pane -t 0
tmux rename-pane "Main"
tmux select-pane -t 1
tmux rename-pane "Left"
tmux select-pane -t 2
tmux rename-pane "Right Top"
tmux select-pane -t 3
tmux rename-pane "Right Bottom"

# Attach to the new session with the desired pane configuration
tmux attach-session -t my_session