Your First Session

Five commands cover 90% of tmux: create a session, detach from it, list sessions, reattach, and kill one when you're done.

Create

tmux new-session -s duels

You're now inside a tmux session named duels. It looks like a normal terminal — that's the point. Run something:

sleep 600

Detach

Press Ctrl-b, release, then press d.

You're back at your regular prompt, and tmux tells you:

[detached (from session duels)]

The sleep 600 is still running — inside the tmux server, safe from anything you do out here.

List

tmux list-sessions

Check:

duels: 1 windows (created Wed Oct 14 19:35:38 2026)

Reattach

tmux attach-session -t duels

You're looking at the session again. The sleep is still counting down, exactly where you left it. (-t means "target" — which session you're talking to.)

Short forms you'll see everywhere: tmux ls for list-sessions, tmux attach -t duels or even tmux a -t duels. They all work.

Kill

When the work is done, kill the session from outside:

tmux kill-session -t duels

Or from inside: type exit in every shell (when the last pane closes, the session ends), or press Ctrl-b then & to kill the window.

Check:

tmux list-sessions

no server running on /tmp/tmux-1000/default

That message just means no sessions exist. Nothing is wrong.

The one habit that matters

Name your sessions (-s duels, -s fleet, -s build). The default names (0, 1, 2) are fine for one session and miserable for five. Names cost nothing and save you from attaching to the wrong thing at 11 PM.