The Agentic Terminal
Building a zsh, ssh, tmux, and vim workflow for the age of AI coding agents.
Early access
Four old tools and one new one. zsh, SSH, tmux, and Neovim meet through documented interfaces such as processes, files, text streams, and terminal sessions. Coding agents use those interfaces too. The patterns come from a dotfiles repository and a plain-text knowledge base maintained through years of daily use.
Status: all 24 chapters and 4 appendices are written; revision and fact-checking are in progress. Early access includes the current draft as PDF and EPUB, and every build until release.
Polar handles the secure checkout. The finished book ships DRM-free as PDF and EPUB, with free updates.
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Vote for this bookHow five tools share one workflow.
The opening chapters explain the role of each tool. The middle of the book builds project workflows, a plain-text knowledge base, and the shared human-agent operating system. The final part shows how to build and maintain your own system. Open a part to see its chapters.
What this book is about, and how to read it
Part 1 The Terminal Stack 6 chapters
- 1 Boring Tools, Powerful Combinations
- 2 zsh: The Interactive Glue
- 3 SSH: A Workspace That Crosses Machines
- 4 tmux: Persistence and Topology
- 5 Neovim: Editing as a Language
- 6 Coding Agents: Delegation with Boundaries
Part 2 Composing the Workflow 6 chapters
- 7 The Project Contract
- 8 Find, Filter, Act
- 9 The tmux Switcher Pattern
- 10 Remote Continuity
- 11 Context Handoffs for Agents
- 12 Small Helpers, Sharp Edges
Part 3 A Second Brain Made of Text 4 chapters
- 13 Text Is the Interface
- 14 Capture Without Friction
- 15 Retrieval Is a Workflow
- 16 Working Memory for Humans and Agents
Part 4 Operating the Human-Agent System 5 chapters
- 17 Trust Domains and Machine Boundaries
- 18 Shared Secrets for Humans and Agents
- 19 Replication Is Not Coordination
- 20 One Work Queue for Humans and Agents
- 21 The Secretariat: A Bounded Office Agent
Part 5 Building Yours 3 chapters
- 22 A Minimal System in an Afternoon
- 23 Assembling the Working System
- 24 Evolution Without Reinvention
Part 6 Appendices 4 appendices
- A The First-Hour Setup
- B Pattern Catalog
- C Troubleshooting by Boundary
- D Glossary and Subject Index
For people who work in a terminal every day.
The book assumes you are willing to keep important state in ordinary files and to ask what owns each part of your workflow. It does not assume shell expertise, a memorized tmux keymap, or a large Neovim distribution.
- Developers, system administrators, SREs, and technical writers who spend their working day in a terminal.
- Readers adopting coding agents who want them bounded by the same seams as every other tool in the stack.
- Experienced terminal users who want design patterns with named responsibilities, and who have seen enough dotfiles listings.
Get early access.
Early access is the draft of the book at a reduced price while revision and fact-checking are in progress. You get the current build as DRM-free PDF and EPUB right after checkout, every new build until release, and the finished book at release, with free updates afterwards.
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