cmux-find-workspace-by-topic

⚠️ Submit Discipline (MANDATORY — read this before every cmux steer)

cmux send does NOT press Enter. This is the #1 recurring cmux failure mode (verified 2026-07-16: user explicitly flagged "you always forget to send" after the fable iOS pivot bootstrap). The 4-step ritual below is a hard contract for every send to a cmux surface. Skip ANY step and the message sits in the input buffer without ever reaching the agent.

The 4-step ritual

# STEP 1 — Type the text. OK response only proves socket acceptance, NOT submission.
cmux send --workspace workspace:N --surface surface:M "your message"

# STEP 2 — Press Enter. send does NOT auto-press Enter.
cmux send-key --workspace workspace:N --surface surface:M enter

# STEP 3 — Wait 5-15 seconds for the agent to start processing.
sleep 8

# STEP 4 — Verify with churning label (THE ONLY definitive proof).
cmux capture-pane --workspace workspace:N --surface surface:M --lines 25
# Look for one of:
#   - "Working (Xs • esc to interrupt)"
#   - "Forming… (Xs · thinking)"
#   - "Precipitating… (Xs · ↓ tokens)"
#   - "Brewed / Churned / Cooked for Xm"
# If you see ANY active churning label → SUBMITTED.
# If the text is still sitting at the ❯ prompt → NOT submitted, repeat step 2.
# If "Stopped" / "Done" / nothing → no churn, investigate.

⚠️ Output Contract — typed text + terminal response (MANDATORY)

Every reply that reports a cmux send action MUST include, in the same reply:

1. The exact text that was typed — verbatim copy of the string passed to cmux send.
2. The cmux terminal response — verbatim transcript of what cmux capture-pane / cmux read-screen returned AFTER the cmux send-key enter settle window (typically 5-15s). Specifically, the agent's first action after absorption.
3. Submission status — explicit verdict: "submitted (churning label X)", "not submitted (text still at ❯ prompt)", or "blocked (no churn, retried N times)".

Treat as not working until we see a response. A reply that does NOT include both the typed text AND a terminal response is invalid evidence that the steer landed. The operator cannot distinguish a successful send from a failed send that left text in the input buffer.

Canonical contract + echo-back template: ~/.hermes/skills/cmux/references/output-contract-mandatory.md.

⚠️ LLM-Provenance Caveat (MANDATORY footer)

Every reply that quotes cmux output, terminal text, or agent actions produced by another LLM (the worker agent OR the assistant's own synthesis of agent output) MUST end with this verbatim footer:

This was generated from another LLM and not the actual user, so feel free to push back if you disagree and we can discuss.

Full caveat rules + scope: ~/.hermes/skills/cmux/references/output-contract-mandatory.md § "LLM-Provenance Caveat".

Echo-back proof (MANDATORY)

Every cmux steering action MUST be followed by an echo-back proof in the same turn or the immediate next turn to your operator (Slack thread, terminal reply, or whichever channel triggered the steer). The proof MUST follow the template in ~/.hermes/skills/cmux/references/output-contract-mandatory.md and include the typed text + terminal response + submission status, not just the churning label.

◀ sent to surface:55 (LEFT/claudec) at <HH:MM:SS PT> — 4-step ritual complete; churning label "Forming… 9s · ↓ 4.9k tokens" confirmed via capture-pane.

Banned (these are the failure modes the user keeps flagging):

• "I sent the message" (no Enter proof)
• "The agent should have received it" (no churning label)
• cmux send with no follow-up cmux send-key enter
• Sending to a surface that hasn't been focused (the global focus may be on a different workspace; use the raw RPC surface.focus if needed)

Worktree-pointer strategy for long briefs

For task briefs >200 chars (e.g. orchestrating iOS app pivot, multi-PR review), do NOT paste the full text into the input. Write the brief to a file in the agent's cwd (e.g. .cmux-<task>-brief.md) and send a 1-2 line pointer. This avoids the autocompleter contamination pitfall where shell-style tokens inside long text trigger tab completion mid-stream.

Canonical reference

Full recipe + edge cases + the 2026-06-25 worked example live at: ~/.hermes/skills/cmux/references/send-submit-proof-2026-06-25.md

This rule was added 2026-07-16 after the fable iOS pivot bootstrap surfaced "you always forget to send" / "make sure you press submit and the work starts on the cmux input" (Slack ts 1784185650.528089). Apply it uniformly to every cmux-touching skill.

Find the cmux Workspace for a Topic

The single most common cmux task from the gateway: user names a topic (agy, bq logging, cost, mobile load, etc.) and you need to find the cmux workspace hosting it. This is harder than it looks because multiple live cmux sessions can coexist (prod + dev), the ~/.local/bin/cmux shim points at one of them, and the workspace you want is often in the other one.

Verified pattern, 2026-06-25 (agy workspace search): the shim's hardcoded default was /tmp/cmux-debug-fix-agy-hook-deny.sock (a dead dev CLI). The actual agy workspace lived in /private/tmp/cmux-debug-may-18.sock (a different live dev session). Without the multi-socket probe, the workspace was invisible.

The 3-step recipe (always run, always in this order)

Step 1 — Probe all candidate cmux sockets

The shim (~/.local/bin/cmux) may be pointed at a dead build or the wrong session. Enumerate ALL live sockets before trusting any single cmux <verb> call:

for s in /tmp/cmux*.sock /private/tmp/cmux*.sock \
         ~/.local/state/cmux/cmux.sock; do
  if [ -S "$s" ]; then
    r=$(printf '{"id":"q","method":"ping","params":{}}\n' | nc -U -w 2 "$s" 2>&1)
    [ -n "$r" ] && echo "LIVE: $s → $r" | head -c 200
  fi
done
# Also check pointer files — cmux writes its preferred socket path here
cat /tmp/cmux-last-socket-path 2>/dev/null
ls $HOME/.local/state/cmux/*-last-socket-path 2>/dev/null
# Each pointer references a build-date-suffixed socket like cmux-debug-may-18.sock

Output: usually 1-2 LIVE entries (prod cmux.sock + one debug cmux-debug-*.sock). If the shim's default socket isn't in the LIVE list, the shim is pointing at a dead build.

Full diagnostic + the multi-app probe recipe (unattended-safe): cmux/SKILL.md § "Two cmux sessions can be live at the same time" and references/multi-app-socket-probe-recipe-2026-06-24.md.

Step 2 — Grep the workspace list of EVERY live session for the topic keyword

for s in /tmp/cmux-debug-*.sock /private/tmp/cmux-debug-*.sock \
         ~/.local/state/cmux/cmux.sock; do
  if [ -S "$s" ]; then
    echo "=== $s ==="
    # `workspace list` is the canonical alias; `list-workspaces` works too
    cmux --socket "$s" workspace list 2>/dev/null \
      | grep -iE "<keyword>" \
      || echo "  (no match)"
  fi
done
# Topic keyword → match against the TITLE column (after the workspace ref), not the ref itself.
# E.g. for "agy", expect a match like:
#   workspace:72  w: misc - agy

Output: a workspace:N + human title for each live session that has the topic. If exactly one match: that's the workspace. If multiple matches across sessions: the user has two live cmux apps hosting the same topic — pick the one with the active surface ([selected] in cmux tree --all).

Step 3 — Discover the focused surface and read its screen

Once you have workspace:N:

SOCK=<the socket that returned the match>
cmux --socket "$SOCK" list-pane-surfaces --workspace=workspace:N
# Look for the leading `*` → that's the focused surface (the one to steer/read).
# Then:
cmux --socket "$SOCK" read-screen --workspace=workspace:N \
  --surface=surface:M --lines 40
# Or for a surface that's NOT the focused one, use the focus-then-read recipe
# in cmux/SKILL.md § "Reading a Non-Focused Surface" — `read-screen` ignores
# non-focused refs.

What to do when no workspace matches

If step 2 returns "no match" in every live session:

1. The work may exist in a worktree with no cmux surface driving it. Check:

   git -C $HOME/projects/<repo> worktree list
   for wt in $(git -C $HOME/projects/<repo> worktree list --porcelain \
               | awk '/^worktree/ {print $2}'); do
     branch=$(git -C "$wt" branch --show-current 2>/dev/null)
     echo "$wt → $branch"
   done | grep -iE "<topic-keywords>"
   

2. Search the user's recent PRs and Slack history for the topic — the workspace may have been closed since the work landed.
3. Report the gap explicitly: "No live cmux workspace matches <keyword>. The work is in <wt> on branch <branch> with no cmux surface, OR the workspace was closed."

Don't fabricate a workspace. Don't grep harder hoping to find one. Report the gap.

Common trap — the user's name doesn't match the workspace title

The user says "find the agy workspace." The actual cmux title is "w: misc - agy" (with the misc prefix). Hermes earlier burned 4 turns looking for "agy" as a substring of "workspace:..." titles before realizing the keyword has to match the column AFTER the ref.

Rule: when the user names a topic, match against the title column only (after stripping the workspace:N prefix and any status markers like [selected]). Don't expect titles to contain all the topic words — they often have prefixes (w:, g -, lvl:, etc.).

If you can't find the topic in any title, ask the user for the workspace name verbatim (e.g. "is it misc - agy or w: agy?"). Don't burn more than 2 grep iterations.

Topic vs. label drift — verify the surface matches the topic

Workspace titles are labels set at creation time, not guarantees of current work. A workspace named "lvl: clean flags" might be driving mobile load PRs. After finding the candidate workspace:

1. cmux identify --workspace=workspace:N → get the focused surface_ref + tty.
2. ps -ef | grep ttysNNN → identify the agent + launch cwd.
3. Confirm the cwd's branch / gh pr list --head <branch> matches the topic.

If the label/content doesn't match: the topic might be in another workspace whose title doesn't contain the keyword — fall back to git worktree list + branch-name grep (same as "no match" path above).

Don't

• Don't trust cmux list-workspaces from the shim alone. The shim may point at a dead dev CLI or the wrong live session. Always enumerate ALL live sockets first.
• Don't grep the socket filename for the topic. Sockets are named cmux-debug-<build-date>.sock, not after the topic.
• Don't cmux read-screen --workspace=workspace:N --surface=surface:M without re-discovering the surface ID first. Surface IDs rotate when panes are recreated. Always re-run list-pane-surfaces --workspace=workspace:N before reading.
• Don't grep ~/.local/state/cmux/ for the topic. That dir holds socket-pointer files, not workspace names.
• Don't tell the user "no such workspace" without enumerating worktrees + recent PRs first. The work may live on disk with no cmux surface — that's a real finding, not a "not found."

Companion skills

• cmux (parent) — Unix socket / CLI reference, including the "Two cmux sessions" multi-session pattern and "Reading a Non-Focused Surface" focus-then-read recipe.
• cmux-terminal-review — bulk terminal inventory (Healthy/Risky/Blocked digest). Use that for "what are all the terminals doing," not this skill.
• find-slack-thread-pr-for-request — when the user references a topic in Slack history ("remember that agy work we did last week"), cross-reference Slack before concluding the work is gone.

Reference files (this skill)

• references/stale-askuserquestion-menu-clear-and-steer-2026-07-28.md — when the agent is sitting at a stale 4-option AskUserQuestion blocking menu from a prior mission (and the menu's referenced PR is already merged / closed / terminal), use the 5-step clear-and-steer ritual: read-screen to confirm menu state → cmux send-key escape → 3s settle → re-read to confirm empty ❯ → then the standard send→enter→verify. Esc is canonical over Enter because Enter on unselected menu picks the default option (often "Stop here"), which may not match the user's intent. Verified 2026-07-28, $GITHUB_REPOSITORY PR #8489 (w4/s80) — operator's steer to /green + /er + /advice succeeded after Esc cleared the stale PR #8328 menu.