Pushing and pulling sessions between machines¶

A Claude Code or Codex session lives on one machine at a time. agb push hands it to another of your machines and agb pull brings it back. On the other side it resumes as the same session, with the same id and full history, not as a seeded copy.

flowchart LR
  subgraph laptop
    L["agb<br/>your sessions"]
  end
  subgraph desk["desk (always on)"]
    D["the session<br/>in a herdr tab"]
  end
  L -- "push: Ctrl+O, or agb push desk ID" --> D
  D -- "pull: Ctrl+R then Enter, or agb pull desk ID" --> L
  D -. "herdr / phone" .-> P(["you, away"])

Neither one is a sync. A push copies the session's files to the other machine and replaces what was there. A pull does the same in the other direction. You always run the command on the machine you are sitting at.

A typical day¶

sequenceDiagram
  actor You
  participant L as laptop (agb)
  participant D as desk (herdr)
  You->>L: work with an agent all morning
  You->>L: quit it, Ctrl+O, Enter (push to desk)
  L->>D: rsync the transcript
  L->>D: arrive hook: open it in a herdr tab
  You-->>D: check on it from your phone
  You->>D: quit it there when you are back
  You->>L: Ctrl+R, pick it, Enter (pull)
  D->>L: rsync the transcript back
  L->>You: it resumes here, same session

In the picker¶

Click a conversation to select it and click a visible footer action to use its shortcut. This includes ^o push, ^r desk, and the push panel's enter push, host and directory controls. Double-clicking a remote conversation pulls and resumes it here, just like Enter.

Push: Ctrl+O¶

Ctrl+O on a Claude Code or Codex session turns the card into a push panel. It finds the project on the other machine, checks both sides, and lists what it will send and what happens once the session is there. Then:

A line marked ✓ passed, ! is a note that does not stop the push, and ✗ stops it.

Pull: Ctrl+R¶

Ctrl+R switches the list to another machine's sessions. The header reads laptop ▸ desk, and pressing Ctrl+R again steps to the next machine and then back home. Typing still filters the list. Enter pulls the selected session and resumes it here, in the account it belongs to. A session that is still open over there shows ● open on desk and cannot be pulled until you quit it there. When a pull stops because the project is not on this machine, the card asks whether to copy it over: Enter, y or Copy & pull copies it with rsync and pulls, and n or Not now puts the question away (Ctrl+P still does it). Esc goes home.

Browsing runs agb --print --json on the other machine over ssh, so agb has to be installed there.

From the command line¶

$ agb push desk 0c5ddcb6 --dry-run
Push CC2 0c5ddcb6-… to desk
  Herdr setup and patch diagrams
  in ~/phd
copy     ~/.claude-cc2/projects/-home-sergio-phd/0c5ddcb6-….jsonl
copy     ~/.claude-cc2/projects/-home-sergio-phd/0c5ddcb6-…
merge    ~/.claude-cc2/projects/-home-sergio-phd/memory (newer files there are kept)
Note: ~/phd has uncommitted changes to tracked files; commit and push them so the code goes along
Dry run: nothing copied. There, it would resume with:
  cd '/home/sergio/phd' && CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR='/home/sergio/.claude-cc2' claude --resume 0c5ddcb6-…

$ agb pull desk 0c5ddcb6

Setting it up¶

1. Linux on both machines. The checks run GNU stat and find, read /proc, and copy with rsync --mkpath; macOS has none of these as-is.
2. Same user, same home path on both machines, and an ssh alias for the other one (ssh desk works without a password). Both commands check the home path and refuse if it differs.
3. Name the machines in ~/.config/agentbridge/config.json. The same file can be used on every machine; each one leaves itself out of the list.

"moveHosts": ["desk"]

1. Install agb on the other machine too if you want to browse it with Ctrl+R. agb is a static binary, so copying ~/.local/bin/agb over works. It has to be on the PATH that ssh desk 'agb --print' sees.
2. Optionally, an arrive hook that starts the session once it lands:

"arrive": {
  "desk": "p=$(herdr tab create --label {title} --cwd {dir} --no-focus | jq -r .result.root_pane.pane_id) && herdr pane run \"$p\" {resume}"
}

The hook runs on that machine over ssh after the copy. {resume}, {dir}, {title} and {id} each become one shell word, so leave them unquoted. This one opens the session in a new herdr tab, where herdr and its phone client can see it. agb itself knows nothing about herdr: tmux new-window -d {resume} works just as well. Without a hook, agb prints the ssh -t command that resumes it there.

What stops it, and what is only a note¶

"Open" means any of three things: Claude Code's own record of a running session (with the process start time, so a reused pid does not count), a process holding the transcript file open, or a process started to resume it (claude --resume <id>, codex resume <id>). The last one catches a session that has not got far enough to do either of the others, such as Claude Code still waiting at its trust prompt.

"Bigger" is the one guard against losing work. Transcripts only grow, so a bigger copy on the receiving side has turns that this one lacks: the session carried on there. Pull it from there instead of pushing over it. agb compares sizes and nothing more. It keeps no history, so the copy being sent simply replaces the other one.

Code is git's job. agb copies the conversation, not your working tree. When the project has uncommitted changes, an unpushed HEAD, or the other checkout sits at a different commit, you get a note. Commit and push before you go, and pull on the other side.

What travels¶

OpenCode keeps its sessions in a database, so OpenCode sessions do not travel.

Using herdr on both machines¶

herdr only sees processes it started itself: a session started with plain ssh desk claude … never shows up in herdr or on your phone. A setup that holds together:

• Run agents inside herdr on the laptop too. Run agb in a herdr pane and open sessions from there.
• When something should keep running while you are away, quit it, Ctrl+O, Enter. The arrive hook opens it in a herdr tab on desk, and your phone follows it there.
• When you are back, Ctrl+R, pick it, Enter. It resumes in the pane you are in.

When something goes wrong¶