Project Workspaces with tmux and vim

2012-05-03

Sometimes I have to stop in the middle of a project to turn off my computer or just to pick up where I left off when I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to it again. With tmux, vim and a little shell scripting, I can save my development environment and resume it using a single command.

My workspace script looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
#
# ws-kittybusiness: kitty business workspace
#
session="kittybusiness"

# cd into the project directory
cd ~/_dev/kittybusiness

# start the database
sudo /etc/rc.d/mysqld start

# set up tmux
tmux start-server

# create a new tmux session, starting vim from a saved session in the new window
tmux new-session -d -s $session -n code "vim -S ~/.vim/sessions/kittybusiness"
tmux selectp -t $session:0

# split the window into two panes by 55%, then start a second vim session in the new pane
tmux splitw -t $session:0 -h -p 55 "vim -S ~/.vim/sessions/kittybusiness2"

# create a new window, running a rails server session
tmux new-window -t $session:1 -n serve "script/server -p 9090"

# create a new window called data 
tmux new-window -t $session:2 -n data

# in the new window, cd into the specified directory 
tmux send-keys -t $session:2 "cd ~/_clients/kittybusiness; ls" C-m
tmux select-window -t $session:0

# connect to the tmux session
tmux attach-session -t $session

The usage of vim sessions above assumes I already had saved some previous vim work. The current vim session can be saved using the mksession command:

:mksession ~/.vim/sessions/sessionname

And it can be restored with this:

vim -S ~/.vim/sessions/sessionname

Now by simply executing ws-kittybusiness I instantly get:

• my current directory set to the project directory
• a running mysql server
• a tmux session with a couple of panes of previously opened files in vim
• a local development webserver

This script could be further abstracted to work with any type of project or used as a base template.