tmux supports a large number of commands which can be used to
control its behaviour. Each command is named and can accept zero
or more flags and arguments. They may be bound to a key with the
bind-key command or run from the shell prompt, a shell script, a
configuration file or the command prompt. For example, the same
set-option command run from the shell prompt, from ~/.tmux.conf and
bound to a key may look like:
$ tmux set-option -g status-style bg=cyan
set-option -g status-style bg=cyan
bind-key C set-option -g status-style bg=cyan
Here, the command name is 'set-option', '-g' is a flag and
'status-style' and 'bg=cyan' are arguments.
tmux distinguishes between command parsing and execution. In order
to execute a command, tmux needs it to be split up into its name
and arguments. This is command parsing. If a command is run from
the shell, the shell parses it; from inside tmux or from a
configuration file, tmux does. Examples of when tmux parses
commands are:
- in a configuration file;
- typed at the command prompt (see command-prompt);
- given to bind-key;
- passed as arguments to if-shell or confirm-before.
To execute commands, each client has a 'command queue'. A global
command queue not attached to any client is used on startup for
configuration files like ~/.tmux.conf. Parsed commands added to
the queue are executed in order. Some commands, like if-shell and
confirm-before, parse their argument to create a new command which
is inserted immediately after themselves. This means that
arguments can be parsed twice or more - once when the parent
command (such as if-shell) is parsed and again when it parses and
executes its command. Commands like if-shell, run-shell and
display-panes stop execution of subsequent commands on the queue
until something happens - if-shell and run-shell until a shell
command finishes and display-panes until a key is pressed. For
example, the following commands:
new-session; new-window
if-shell "true" "split-window"
kill-session
Will execute new-session, new-window, if-shell, the shell command
true(1), split-window and kill-session in that order.
The COMMANDS section lists the tmux commands and their arguments.
