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Quil vs herdr

A Rust terminal multiplexer purpose-built for AI coding agents — 'the runtime your coding agents live on.' Single binary, its own PTY and VT engine, a socket API agents can drive, and a language-agnostic plugin system. Quil's closest philosophical twin.

herdr · where it wins

Agent breadth and extensibility.

Agent breadth and extensibility. Detects 24+ agents from bundled TOML screen manifests that update themselves from herdr.dev, takes an authoritative state feed from installed lifecycle hooks where an agent offers one, installs those integrations with one command, exposes a full socket API + CLI with a subscribable event stream that agents and scripts can drive, and runs language-agnostic plugins with actions, event hooks and link handlers from a marketplace.

Quil · where it takes over

MCP-native. Windows 10 handled properly. Notes + memory built in.

There is no first-party MCP server — herdr's own pitch is that agents talk to each other through it without one, so they drive it through a bespoke socket API and an installed skill instead of a protocol assistants already speak; the community has since wrapped that socket in third-party MCP bridges, which is a real answer but not one herdr ships or supports. On Windows — generally available now, no longer beta — it still has no live server handoff, no direct terminal attach and no clipboard image bridge in local native panes. It has no pane-notes editor and no per-pane memory reporting.

Where they fit

herdr and Quil made almost the same bet: build your own multiplexer, keep it a single lightweight binary, and make it agent-aware. herdr is further ahead on agent breadth (24+ agents detected, one-command native integrations for 18 of them) and on scriptable plugins; Quil is further ahead on speaking MCP, the protocol AI assistants already understand, and on the Windows edges herdr still excludes. The honest read: herdr is the stronger Unix-first agent fleet manager today, Quil is the stronger MCP-native one.

Capability matrix

Feature by feature

capability	quil	herdr
Own multiplexer + PTY (not a tmux wrapper)	yes	yes
Survives a full host reboot	yes	yes
AI session auto-resume	yes	yes
└── herdr restores native sessions for most of the agents it integrates with; Quil for Claude Code, OpenCode and Codex.
Native Windows (no WSL)	yes	partial
└── herdr calls native Windows generally available now — it is no longer a beta, and what is left is a list of named exclusions rather than a maturity gap: no direct terminal attach, no live server handoff, and no clipboard image bridge in local native panes. Quil's remaining edge is that last one — a Win32 DIB→PNG clipboard image-paste proxy — plus bundled OpenConsole so Windows 10's inbox conhost cannot mangle an agent's rendering. Neither tool lets a Windows machine act as a remote host others attach to.
MCP server for AI agents	yes	no
└── herdr ships no first-party MCP server — it exposes a bespoke newline-delimited JSON socket API plus a CLI and an installed agent skill instead. Third-party bridges that wrap that socket in MCP now exist, so an MCP client can reach herdr; they are community projects, versioned and supported separately from herdr itself.
Pane notes editor	yes	no
Per-pane memory reporting	yes	no
Screen-content agent detection (no hooks)	partial	yes
└── Quil pattern-matches idle only. herdr evaluates bundled TOML manifests against the live screen, the pane title and OSC progress sequences to classify idle / working / blocked, refreshes those manifests from herdr.dev without a new binary, and lets you override one locally — but adding a genuinely new agent still needs a herdr release, because process detection is compiled in.
Breadth of agents detected	partial	yes
└── Quil: 3 deep (Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex) + tools. herdr: 24+ detected, 18 with a one-command integration installer.
Subscribable event stream for scripts	partial	yes
└── herdr's socket API has events.subscribe — a long-lived push stream of workspace, tab, pane, layout and worktree lifecycle events. Quil's equivalent is narrower: watch_notifications blocks for sidebar-worthy events, and task delegation reports its own completion, but there is no general subscription to pane or layout changes.
One-command agent integration installer	no	yes
Git worktree-per-session	yes	yes
└── Quil opens a tab straight onto a new worktree — the pane is a placeholder with a spinner while git worktree add runs, so a slow monorepo checkout can never be mistaken for an agent started in the wrong tree — and closing that tab or pane offers to remove the worktree, naming what it holds and refusing to call a dirty one clean.
Executable plugins (actions / event hooks / link handlers)	partial	yes
└── Quil plugins are declarative TOML pane types; herdr runs any-language plugins.
Plugin marketplace	no	yes
General CLI to script the multiplexer	no	yes
└── Quil scripts via MCP (for AI); herdr adds a shell CLI for humans.
Remote SSH thin-client attach	yes	yes
└── `quil --remote <host>` since v1.44; opens no port, reconnects on its own after a dropped link, and installs itself on a bare server.
Several hosts in one window at once	yes	yes
└── Both do this now, and the shape is nearly identical: each machine keeps its own server, one client holds them all, and losing one host does not disconnect the others. Quil tags each project with the machine that owns it and gives each host its own reconnect state; herdr saves an SSH machine once and switches between it and Local in the sidebar, streaming pane screens only for the selected machine while the rest keep reporting workspace info, agent state and notifications.
Named sessions / live server handoff	no	yes
Sound + desktop notifications	partial	yes
└── Quil raises real Windows toasts when an agent parks on a prompt or finishes a turn, and clicking one routes you to the pane that sent it. Still missing: sound, and macOS/Linux — herdr does all three, and can hand the notification to the outer terminal as well as the OS.
Themes with light/dark auto-switch	partial	yes
└── Quil ships no theme presets — it asks the terminal for its real foreground and background (OSC 10/11) and renders against those, so it follows your terminal instead of theming itself. herdr carries named themes and switches between a light and a dark one when the terminal reports the change.

Migrating from herdr

Coming from herdr?

herdr uses a tmux-style prefix (Ctrl+B) where Quil uses direct Alt-based keys. Both keep agents alive on detach, restore AI sessions, and hold several machines in one window. Pick Quil if your assistant should drive the multiplexer over MCP with no glue, or if you work on Windows 10 and want bundled OpenConsole and clipboard image paste. Pick herdr if you drive many different agents, want a shell CLI and an event stream to script it from, or want plugins you can write in any language.

Questions

Is herdr basically Quil in Rust?

Architecturally they're remarkably close — both build their own multiplexer and PTY layer rather than wrapping tmux, both keep agents alive on detach, both restore AI sessions, and both now hold several machines in one client with per-host reconnect. The divergence is emphasis: herdr optimizes for agent breadth and for being scriptable from a shell; Quil optimizes for being an MCP server that AI assistants drive directly, with no bespoke API to teach them.

Can herdr run on Windows without WSL?

Yes — herdr now calls native Windows generally available, so this is no longer the clear split it once was. What is still unsupported there is specific: no direct terminal attach, no live server handoff, and no clipboard image bridge in local native panes. Quil's edge is narrower than it used to be but concrete: bundled OpenConsole so Windows 10's inbox conhost cannot mangle an agent's output, and a Win32 clipboard image-paste proxy that gets screenshots into a Claude Code pane. To be straight about it, neither tool can use a Windows machine as a remote host you attach to from elsewhere.

How do agents control each tool?

herdr exposes a Unix-socket API plus a CLI, and ships an installable 'skill' so an agent learns to call it. Quil exposes 36 tools for panes, projects, remote hosts and task delegation over the Model Context Protocol, which Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code speak natively with no glue.

Other comparisons

▸ install quil every capability →

Quil installs side by side with herdr. Nothing to uninstall first.