Agent of Empires (aoe)

Overview

aoe creates, manages, and monitors AI coding agent sessions (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and others) inside tmux. Each session is an agent process with an ID, title, tool, project path, and live status. Use aoe instead of raw tmux commands whenever the work is about coding agents: it tracks status, captures output, manages git worktrees for parallel branches, and organizes sessions into groups and profiles.

When to Use

• Launching one or more AI coding agents on project directories.
• Monitoring agent progress (waiting vs running vs idle).
• Capturing agent output for review.
• Organizing agents into groups or profiles.
• Setting up parallel worktree-based development.

Don't use for: general tmux window/pane management unrelated to coding agents.

Requirements

The aoe and tmux binaries must be on PATH, and commands run through a shell. Install aoe from https://github.com/agent-of-empires/agent-of-empires.

Core Concepts

• Session: An agent process running in a tmux session. Each has an ID, title, tool (e.g. claude), and project path.
• Group: A named folder for organizing sessions (supports nesting with /, e.g. backend/api).
• Profile: A separate workspace with its own sessions and config. Use -p <name> globally or set AGENT_OF_EMPIRES_PROFILE.
• Status: One of running, waiting, idle, stopped, error, starting, unknown.

Adding Sessions

# Add a session for the current directory
aoe add . -t "my feature"

# Add with group, launch immediately
aoe add /path/to/repo -t "API work" -g backend -l

# Add with specific tool
aoe add . -t "codex session" -c codex

# Add in a git worktree (parallel branch)
aoe add . -t "fix-123" -w fix/issue-123 -l

# Add in Docker sandbox
aoe add . -t "sandboxed" -s -l

# Add as sub-session of another
aoe add . -t "sub task" -P <parent-id>

# Enable YOLO mode (skip permission prompts)
aoe add . -t "yolo" -y -l

Listing Sessions

aoe list              # human-readable
aoe list --json       # JSON for parsing
aoe list --all        # across all profiles
aoe list --json --state=live   # skip trashed and archived rows

JSON shape (aoe list --json):

[
  {
    "id": "a1b2c3d4-...",
    "title": "my feature",
    "path": "/home/user/project",
    "group": "backend",
    "tool": "claude",
    "command": "claude",
    "profile": "default",
    "state": "live",
    "created_at": "2025-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "workspace_repos": []
  }
]

command is omitted when empty; worktree appears only for worktree-backed sessions. state is live, archived, or trashed; trashed_at and archived_at are set independently, and trashing leaves archived_at alone, so a session archived and then trashed carries both keys and reports trashed. Neither timestamp is durable, but they do not clear alike: archived_at is cleared by aoe session unarchive, by aoe session favorite, and by anything that wakes the session (aoe send, and aoe session restart when it sends its wake message), while trashed_at is cleared only by aoe session restore. Key off state rather than caching a timestamp. A trashed session stays in the listing and keeps its title, so check state before treating a row as a live session. list --json does not include live status: use aoe status --json or aoe session capture --json for that.

snoozed_until and pinned_at round out the four state timestamps the REST API exposes: pinned_at appears whenever the session is pinned for the web sidebar, while snoozed_until appears only while the snooze is still active (the API's own gate), so an expired deadline omits the key instead of advertising a snooze that already ended. Both are independent of state, and neither key appears on a row carrying neither marker. snoozed_until also clears readily, more often than its siblings: waking the session (aoe send), archiving, favoriting, unsnoozing, or pinning all remove it on the next read, so treat a missing key as no active snooze rather than a listing gap.

Session Lifecycle

aoe session start <id-or-title>
aoe session stop <id-or-title>
aoe session restart <id-or-title>
aoe session attach <id-or-title>   # interactive attach

Inspecting Sessions

# Session metadata
aoe session show <id-or-title> --json

# Capture tmux pane content (key for monitoring)
aoe session capture <id-or-title> --json
aoe session capture <id-or-title> -n 100 --strip-ansi
aoe session capture <id-or-title>   # plain text, good for piping

# Quick status summary
aoe status --json
aoe status -q   # just the waiting count (for scripting)

JSON shape (aoe session capture --json):

{
  "id": "a1b2c3d4-...",
  "title": "my feature",
  "status": "waiting",
  "tool": "claude",
  "content": "... pane text ...",
  "lines": 50
}

JSON shape (aoe session show --json):

{
  "id": "a1b2c3d4-...",
  "title": "my feature",
  "path": "/home/user/project",
  "group": "backend",
  "tool": "claude",
  "command": "claude",
  "status": "running",
  "state": "live",
  "profile": "default"
}

parent_session_id is included only for sub-sessions. state is live, archived, or trashed, the same vocabulary aoe list --json uses; trashed_at and archived_at are set independently, and trashing deliberately leaves archived_at alone, so a session archived and then trashed carries both keys and reports trashed. Neither timestamp is durable, and they do not clear alike: archived_at is cleared by aoe session unarchive, by aoe session favorite, and by anything that wakes the session, which means aoe send and aoe session restart when it sends its wake message (with session.restart_wake_message set to the empty string it does not send one, and the archive survives the restart). trashed_at is cleared only by aoe session restore. Read the current state rather than caching a timestamp; status is the pane's live status and does not carry it, since an archived session can still be running.

The same two keys apply here as in aoe list --json: pinned_at whenever the session is pinned for the web sidebar, snoozed_until only while the snooze is still active.

JSON shape (aoe status --json):

{
  "waiting": 1,
  "running": 2,
  "idle": 1,
  "stopped": 1,
  "error": 0,
  "total": 5
}

Auto-detection (inside a tmux pane)

When called from within an aoe-managed tmux session, the identifier can be omitted:

aoe session show          # auto-detects current session
aoe session capture       # auto-detects current session
aoe session current --json

Renaming and Organizing

aoe session rename <id> -t "new title"
aoe session rename <id> -g "new/group"

aoe group create mygroup
aoe group move <id-or-title> mygroup
aoe group list --json
aoe group delete mygroup --force

Profiles

aoe profile list
aoe profile create staging
aoe profile delete staging
aoe profile default staging   # set default
aoe -p staging list           # use inline

Worktrees

aoe worktree list
aoe worktree info <id-or-title>
aoe worktree cleanup -f

Removing Sessions

aoe remove <id-or-title>
aoe remove <id-or-title> --delete-worktree --force

Workflow Patterns

Single agent

aoe add /path/to/repo -t "feature X" -l
# ... wait ...
aoe session capture "feature X" --json

Parallel worktree agents

aoe add . -t "issue-100" -w fix/issue-100 -l
aoe add . -t "issue-101" -w fix/issue-101 -l
aoe add . -t "issue-102" -w fix/issue-102 -l
aoe status --json   # check all at once

Monitoring loop

Poll all sessions until none are running or waiting:

while true; do
  status=$(aoe status --json)
  waiting=$(echo "$status" | jq '.waiting')
  running=$(echo "$status" | jq '.running')
  if [ "$running" -eq 0 ] && [ "$waiting" -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "All agents finished"
    break
  fi
  echo "Running: $running, Waiting: $waiting"
  sleep 30
done

Capture and review

for id in $(aoe list --json | jq -r '.[].id'); do
  echo "=== $id ==="
  aoe session capture "$id" -n 100 --strip-ansi
  echo
done

Common Pitfalls

1. Expecting aoe list --json to carry live status. It does not. The fields are static session metadata (path, group, tool, command, etc.). For status, call aoe status --json or aoe session capture --json.
2. Using raw tmux to start or stop agents. That bypasses aoe's tracking; the session's status and metadata go stale. Always use aoe session start/stop/restart.
3. Forgetting -l/--launch. aoe add creates a session but does not start it unless you pass -l.
4. Running across the wrong profile. Sessions are profile-scoped; use -p <name> or set AGENT_OF_EMPIRES_PROFILE when scripting, and aoe list --all to see everything.

Verification Checklist

• aoe and tmux are on PATH.
• aoe add was followed by a launch (-l) or an explicit aoe session start.
• JSON parsing reads path/group (not project_path/group_path) and gets status from aoe status/aoe session capture, not aoe list.
• Scripted polling exits when both running and waiting reach 0.