WezTerm — High-RAM Agent Swarm Management

Core Principle: WezTerm mux replaces tmux. Leverage massive RAM (512GB+) for agent swarms. Never nest multiplexers.

Quick Diagnosis

# One-liner status
echo "Mux: $(ps aux | grep -c '[w]ezterm-mux') procs | $(wezterm cli list --format json 2>/dev/null | jq length) panes | RSS: $(ps -eo rss,args | grep '[w]ezterm-mux' | awk '{sum+=$1} END {printf "%.1fGB", sum/1024/1024}')"

# Is mux running?
ps aux | grep wezterm-mux | grep -v grep

# Memory usage
ps -eo pid,rss,args | grep wezterm-mux | awk '{printf "%.1fGB\n", $2/1024/1024}'

# Recent logs
tail -20 /run/user/$(id -u)/wezterm/wezterm-mux-server-log-*.txt

# Connection test
wezterm cli list --format json | jq length

# Socket status
ls -la /run/user/$(id -u)/wezterm/sock

The Agent Swarm Problem

When running 20+ AI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI), each agent produces continuous output, runs for hours, spawns subprocesses, and operates in parallel. This overwhelms WezTerm's defaults.

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃                          THE FAILURE CASCADE                                  ┃
┃                                                                               ┃
┃  1. Output buffer fills        →  parser falls behind                         ┃
┃  2. Coalesce delay accumulates →  lag builds up                               ┃
┃  3. Caches thrash              →  CPU spikes on render                        ┃
┃  4. Socket buffers fill        →  connection hangs                            ┃
┃  5. You restart mux            →  ALL SESSIONS DIE (use reptyr first!)        ┃
┃                                                                               ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

Default Assumptions vs Reality

Performance Tuning (High-RAM)

THE EXACT PROMPT — Auto-Tune for Your RAM

# Auto-tune using linear interpolation (recommended)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Dicklesworthstone/misc_coding_agent_tips_and_scripts/main/wezterm-mux-tune.sh | bash

# Preview without applying
./wezterm-mux-tune.sh --dry-run

# Calculate for specific RAM
./wezterm-mux-tune.sh --ram 200

# Use exact fixed profile
./wezterm-mux-tune.sh --profile 512

# Restore from backup
./wezterm-mux-tune.sh --restore

THE EXACT PROMPT — 512GB Manual Profile

Add to ~/.wezterm.lua before return config:

-- 512GB HIGH-RAM PROFILE
config.scrollback_lines = 10000000
config.mux_output_parser_buffer_size = 16 * 1024 * 1024
config.mux_output_parser_coalesce_delay_ms = 1
config.ratelimit_mux_line_prefetches_per_second = 1000
config.shape_cache_size = 65536
config.line_state_cache_size = 65536
config.line_quad_cache_size = 65536
config.line_to_ele_shape_cache_size = 65536
config.glyph_cache_image_cache_size = 4096

Settings Quick Reference

Profiles by RAM

After applying: Restart mux to load new settings.

Emergency Session Rescue

Scenario: Mux unresponsive but agents still running. DON'T kill mux yet!

THE EXACT PROMPT — reptyr Rescue Workflow

# 1. Connect via plain SSH (bypass broken mux)
ssh user@host

# 2. Setup
sudo apt-get install -y reptyr
sudo sysctl -w kernel.yama.ptrace_scope=0

# 3. Create rescue session
tmux new-session -d -s rescue -x 200 -y 50

# 4. Find agents
ps -eo pid,args | grep -E 'claude --dangerously|codex --dangerously' | grep -v grep

# 5. Migrate each agent
for pid in $(ps -eo pid,args | grep -E 'claude --dangerously|codex --dangerously' | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'); do
  tmux new-window -t rescue -n "agent-$pid"
  tmux send-keys -t "rescue:agent-$pid" "reptyr -T $pid" Enter
  sleep 0.5
done

# 6. Verify migrations
for win in $(tmux list-windows -t rescue -F "#{window_name}" | grep agent); do
  tmux capture-pane -t "rescue:$win" -p | grep -qE "bypass|Claude" && echo "✓ $win" || echo "✗ $win"
done

# 7. NOW safe to kill mux
pkill -9 -f wezterm-mux

# 8. Restore security
sudo sysctl -w kernel.yama.ptrace_scope=1

# 9. Restart mux
wezterm-mux-server --daemonize

# 10. Access rescued agents
tmux attach -t rescue  # Ctrl-b w to browse

reptyr Failure Modes

Success rate: 50-70%. Older/idle sessions migrate better than active ones with many subprocesses.

Mux Server Operations

Start/Stop

# Start (daemonized)
wezterm-mux-server --daemonize

# Stop gracefully
pkill -f wezterm-mux-server

# Force stop (kills sessions!)
pkill -9 -f wezterm-mux-server

# Restart (loses sessions unless rescued first)
pkill -9 -f wezterm-mux; wezterm-mux-server --daemonize

# Restart via systemd (if configured)
systemctl --user restart wezterm-mux-server

Kill Stuck Proxy Processes

Safe to kill — won't affect mux sessions:

pkill -f 'wezterm cli.*proxy'

Why Mux Degrades Over Time

Persistent Sessions Setup

Remote Server (one-time)

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user

cat > ~/.config/systemd/user/wezterm-mux-server.service << 'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=WezTerm Mux Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/wezterm-mux-server --daemonize=false
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
Environment=WEZTERM_LOG=warn

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now wezterm-mux-server
sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

Local Config (SSH domain)

config.ssh_domains = {
  {
    name = 'myserver',
    remote_address = '10.0.0.1',
    username = 'ubuntu',
    multiplexing = 'WezTerm',  -- Key setting
    assume_shell = 'Posix',
  },
}

CLI Quick Reference

Maintenance Checklist

• Weekly: Check mux memory, consider restart if > 50GB RSS
• Before restart: Check for active agents (use reptyr if needed)
• After tuning: Restart mux to apply new settings
• Version mismatch: Client/server MUST match exactly

# Check version match
wezterm --version                    # local
ssh host 'wezterm --version'         # remote

# Check mux memory
ps -eo rss,args | grep '[w]ezterm-mux' | awk '{printf "RSS: %.1fGB\n", $1/1024/1024}'

Troubleshooting

Log Locations

# Mux server log
/run/user/$(id -u)/wezterm/wezterm-mux-server-log-*.txt

# Socket path
/run/user/$(id -u)/wezterm/sock

References