Cockpit

A tmux-native terminal dashboard for developers juggling multiple projects. One command gives you a persistent home screen with live project status, quick-capture for fleeting thoughts, and one-keystroke jumping between contexts.

┌─ Sessions ───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐       │
│ │ cockpit*  │ │ my-app    │ │ side-proj  │       │
│ │ attached  │ │ detached  │ │ attached   │       │
│ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘       │
├─ Repos ──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ my-app      feat/auth     ✗ 3    ↑2  add auth…   │
│ side-proj   main          ✓          fix typo…    │
├─ Today ──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ [x] Ship auth fix                                │
│ [ ] Review PR for side-proj  ◂                   │
├─ Inbox ──────────────┬─ Signals ─────────────────┤
│ [ ] look into caching │ ✗ 1 repo with failing CI  │
│ > _                   │ ✓ All sessions active      │
├──────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┤
│ Tab panels  j/k nav  Enter jump  x toggle  c cap │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

What it does

• Sessions — See all running tmux sessions. Press Enter to jump to one, or auto-create a new session from a repo.
• Repos — Git status across all your projects: branch, dirty/clean, unpushed commits, last commit message.
• Today — Tasks pulled from a markdown file in your Obsidian vault. Toggle them with x.
• Inbox — Quick-capture thoughts with c or cockpit cap "idea" from any terminal. Triage later in Obsidian.
• Signals — What needs attention: failing CI, unpushed commits, stale sessions.

Everything refreshes automatically. Local sources (tmux, git, Obsidian) every 5 seconds, GitHub every 60 seconds.

Install

Requires Go 1.22+, tmux, git, and optionally gh (GitHub CLI) for PR/CI signals.

go install github.com/jeffdhooton/cockpit@latest

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/jeffdhooton/cockpit.git
cd cockpit
go build -o cockpit .
cp cockpit ~/.local/bin/  # or anywhere in your PATH

Setup

# Generate a config file
cockpit init

# Edit it — add your repos and Obsidian vault path
$EDITOR ~/.config/cockpit/config.toml

The config looks like this:

[general]
session_name = "cockpit"
refresh_interval = 5

[obsidian]
vault_path = "~/Documents/Vault"
today_file = "Cockpit/today.md"
inbox_file = "Cockpit/inbox.md"

[[repos]]
path = "~/workspace/my-app"
label = "my-app"

[[repos]]
path = "~/workspace/side-project"
label = "side-proj"

[github]
enabled = true
refresh_interval = 60

[signals]
stale_session_threshold = "24h"
show_stale_sessions = true
show_unpushed = true
show_failing_ci = true

Create the Obsidian task files if they don't exist:

mkdir -p ~/Documents/Vault/Cockpit
touch ~/Documents/Vault/Cockpit/today.md ~/Documents/Vault/Cockpit/inbox.md

If you use Obsidian, enable "Detect all file changes" in Settings → Files & Links so task toggles from Cockpit sync seamlessly.

Usage

# Launch (or reattach to) the cockpit dashboard
cockpit

# Capture a thought from anywhere
cockpit cap "fix the auth bug"

# Interactive capture mode
cockpit cap

Keybindings

Key	Action
Tab	Cycle focus between panels
j / k	Navigate items within a panel
Enter	Jump to tmux session (Sessions/Repos panels)
x	Toggle task checkbox
c	Enter capture mode
Esc	Exit capture mode
r	Force refresh all sources
q	Quit (session stays alive — run cockpit to return)

How it works

Cockpit is a single Go binary built with Bubbletea. It creates a tmux session and runs the TUI inside it. When you jump to another session, cockpit stays alive in the background. Run cockpit again to reattach.

Data sources are polled on independent intervals using tea.Tick:

• tmux — tmux list-panes for session data
• git — git status, git log, git rev-list per configured repo
• Obsidian — reads/writes plain markdown files (checkbox lines)
• GitHub — gh pr list, gh run list via the GitHub CLI

Recommended tmux config

Cockpit works best with Ctrl+Space as your tmux prefix and a binding to jump back:

# In ~/.tmux.conf
unbind C-b
set -g prefix C-Space
bind C-Space send-prefix

# Jump back to cockpit from any session
bind S switch-client -t cockpit

See starting-spec.md for a full recommended tmux config optimized for split ergonomic keyboards.

License

MIT