Better Sessions

A collection of bash scripts for enhanced tmux session management, optimized for my personal development workflow.

⚠️ Personal Use Notice

These scripts are heavily optimized for my specific setup and preferences. They work great for me, but they might not work for you out of the box. If you like the concepts but the implementation doesn't fit your workflow, I encourage you to fork this and make your own version!

What This Does

session-switcher.sh

An interactive tmux session manager with fzf integration:

• 📋 Lists all existing tmux sessions with preview
• ➕ Create new sessions from the menu
• 🗑️ Delete sessions with Ctrl-D hotkey
• 🔄 Live reload after operations
• 👁️ Rich previews showing session windows and details

project-session.sh

A smart project session creator:

• 📁 Browse project directories with fzf
• 🚀 Automatically creates tmux sessions with nvim + terminal layout
• 🛑 Respects git repository boundaries (stops at .git)
• ⚡ Fast directory discovery using ripgrep
• 🙈 Ignores common build/dependency directories
• 🎯 Only shows actual project roots, not random subdirectories

Dependencies

You'll need these tools installed:

# Core tools
tmux       # Session management
fzf        # Fuzzy finder interface
rg         # Ripgrep for fast file searching
nvim       # Neovim (or change to your preferred editor)

Installation

# Clone or download the scripts
git clone <your-repo> better-sessions
cd better-sessions

# Make them executable
chmod +x session-switcher.sh project-session.sh

# Optional: Add to your PATH or create aliases
echo 'alias s="~/path/to/session-switcher.sh"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'alias p="~/path/to/project-session.sh -d ~/code"' >> ~/.bashrc

Usage

Command Line

# Session switcher - Interactive session management
./session-switcher.sh

# Project session creator - Browse git repositories
./project-session.sh -d ~/code

# Use current directory
./project-session.sh myproject

# Show help
./project-session.sh --help

tmux Hotkeys (Recommended)

Add these bindings to your ~/.config/tmux/tmux.conf:

# Project session creator - browse git repos and create sessions
bind-key o display-popup -E -w 80% -h 70% "~/path/to/better-sessions/project-session.sh -d ~/code"

# Session switcher - manage existing sessions  
bind-key O display-popup -E -w 80% -h 70% "~/path/to/better-sessions/session-switcher.sh"

Then reload tmux config: tmux source-file ~/.config/tmux/tmux.conf

Hotkeys:

• Ctrl-Space + o (lowercase) → Project creator popup (browse git repos)
• Ctrl-Space + O (uppercase) → Session switcher popup (manage sessions)

Navigation

# Session Switcher:
# ↑/↓: Navigate sessions
# Enter: Switch to session  
# Ctrl-D: Delete session
# Esc: Cancel

# Project Creator:
# ↑/↓: Navigate git repositories
# Enter: Create session with repo name
# Esc: Cancel
# Preview shows: git status, recent commits, branches

Layout Created

When you create a project session, you get:

┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────┐
│                             │         │
│          nvim .             │terminal │
│         (75%)               │  (25%)  │
│                             │         │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────┘

Personal Quirks & Optimizations

tmux Index Settings

My tmux is configured with 1-based indexing for windows and panes:

# In ~/.tmux.conf
set -g base-index 1
setw -g pane-base-index 1

If you use 0-based indexing (default), you'll need to change the pane targeting in project-session.sh from :1.1 and :1.2 to :0.0 and :0.1.

Directory Structure Assumptions

The scripts assume a typical code directory structure like:

~/code/
├── project1/          # Git repo
├── project2/          # Has package.json
├── project3/          # Has Cargo.toml
└── random-folder/     # Not a project, ignored

Ignored Directories

I work primarily with Node.js, Rust, and Go projects, so the ignore list reflects that:

node_modules, target, build, dist, .git, vendor, __pycache__,
.venv, .next, .cache, .idea, .vscode, bin, obj, etc.

Customization

You can override the ignore list:

export PROJECT_IGNORE_DIRS=$'node_modules\ntarget\nmy_custom_dir'
./project-session.sh -d ~/code

Why These Choices?

• fzf: Because interactive selection beats typing paths
• ripgrep: Blazingly fast, even on huge codebases
• Git repositories only: No clutter, only actual projects
• tmux popups: Access from anywhere without finding a terminal
• Git previews: See repo status before switching
• Nvim + terminal: My preferred dev layout (75% editor, 25% terminal)

Making It Yours

If you want to adapt this:

1. Change the editor: Replace nvim . with code ., vim ., etc.
2. Adjust layout: Modify the tmux split and resize commands
3. Different ignore patterns: Update the get_ignore_patterns function
4. Project detection: Modify is_project_root for your project types
5. tmux indexing: Adjust pane targeting if you use 0-based indexing

Contributing

This is a personal tool, but if you find bugs or have suggestions that align with the general workflow, feel free to open an issue. Just remember - if it works for me but not for you, that's probably by design!

License

Do whatever you want with this code. If it helps you, great! If not, make your own version that works better for your setup.