Quil – drive AI coding sessions on a remote box over plain SSH

Quil, a terminal multiplexer that survives host reboots and auto-resumes Claude Code sessions, has been released as a single static binary with no daemon or cloud account required. The tool, built by an unnamed developer, snapshots workspaces to ~/.quil/workspace.json, supports typed panes for terminal, claude-code, opencode (beta), ssh, and stripe, and includes an MCP server with 18 tools for AI agents to interact with the terminal. Quil claims to outperform tmux, Zellij, and WezTerm in reboot survival and AI session resume, and offers native Windows support without WSL.

01 / 06 · HERO LAT 48.8566° N LON 2.3522° E BUILD 1.45.3-release REV 20260731 the workspace that doesn't forget. tmux survives disconnects. Quil survives reboots . Typed panes, auto-resuming Claude Code sessions, and an MCP server that lets AI agents reach into your terminal. One static binary. No daemon to configure. No cloud account. § 02 / 06 ━ WHAT IT DOES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ A multiplexer is a tool. Quil is a contract. The contract: your machine rebooting is not your problem. Neither is re-explaining context to Claude Code, re-pasting your last screenshot, or rebuilding five SSH tunnels by hand. Four capabilities, each load-bearing, each opinionated. Tabs, panes, working directories, and layout ratios snapshot continuously to ~/.quil/workspace.json. Type quil after any restart — everything snaps back in under 30 seconds. Ghost buffers replay the last 500 lines per pane while shells re-initialise. ← PERSISTENCEEach AI pane owns a UUID at spawn. On restart, Quil runs claude --resume <id automatically. No copy-paste, no context rebuild, no re-explaining what you were doing. Your conversation is where you left it. How auto-resume works → /blog/resume-claude-code-session-after-reboot/ A Claude Code pane resumes differently than an SSH tunnel, which resumes differently than a stripe listen. Five types built in — terminal, claude-code, opencode beta , ssh, stripe. Yours in 30 lines of TOML. No compile, no restart, hot-reload on save. ← TOML PLUGINSRun quil mcp and any MCP-capable client — Claude Desktop, Cursor, Claude Code — can list panes, read output, send keystrokes, and snapshot your workspace. 18 tools. Your terminal becomes addressable by AI. ← AGENT LAYER § 03 / 06 ━ LIVE DEMO━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┫ Four panes. Four types. One workspace. A real Quil layout — a Claude Code session, a live shell, an SSH tunnel, and a Stripe webhook listener. Click a pane to focus it. Everything you see here survives a reboot. main │ pane 1/4 · claude-code │ ghost-buf 500 lines │ snapshot 00:00:02 ago Alt+← → ↑ ↓ to navigate · Ctrl+E focus-mode · Alt+E pane notes § 04 / 06 ━ VS THE FIELD━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┫ Different category. tmux and Zellij survive network disconnects but not host reboots. WezTerm is a terminal emulator that happens to multiplex. Screen is 38 years old. Quil is a workflow orchestrator that treats your terminal as the source of truth. Building the same thing for agents? So are herdr /vs/herdr and Agent of Empires /vs/aoe . They ship broader agent support and a web dashboard; Quil answers with native Windows, an MCP server, and pane notes. See the honest side-by-side — gaps included. | capability | quil | tmux | zellij | wezterm | |---|---|---|---|---| | Host reboot survival | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | | AI session resume | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | | Typed panes | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | | MCP server for agents | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | | Native Windows no WSL | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | vs · herdr The closest rival: a Rust agent multiplexer. Broader agent support; no native Windows, no MCP. → compare /vs/herdr vs · Agent of Empires A tmux-based agent manager with a web dashboard. Richer remote; WSL2-only, no MCP. → compare /vs/aoe vs · tmux The 2007 standard. Still the answer if you just need tabs on a remote host. → compare /vs/tmux vs · Zellij The modern Rust option. Friendly UX, WASM plugins, no reboot story. → compare /vs/zellij vs · WezTerm A terminal emulator with multiplexer bolted on. Use both — they complement. → compare /vs/wezterm vs · GNU Screen 1987. Still on every Unix host. Not a dev-experience tool anymore. → compare /vs/screen § 05 / 06 ━ COMMON QUESTIONS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┫ Questions, answered. The honest version — what Quil does, how the persistence actually works, where it runs, and when you genuinely don't need it. No marketing hedging. What is Quil? Quil is a reboot-proof terminal multiplexer for developers who run complex multi-tool workflows alongside AI coding assistants. It persists your entire workspace — tabs, panes, layout, working directories, and AI session IDs — across host reboots, so typing quil after a restart snaps everything back in under 30 seconds. How is Quil different from tmux or Zellij? tmux and Zellij are terminal multiplexers — they survive network disconnects but not full host reboots. Quil survives reboots. It also understands pane types a Claude Code pane resumes differently than an SSH pane , ships an MCP server for AI agents, and tracks per-pane notes alongside your work. For a deeper comparison, see /vs/tmux or /vs/zellij. Which AI tools does Quil support today? Claude Code has first-class support via the built-in Claude Code pane type, with auto-resume on daemon restart, a setup dialog that pre-fills the active pane's working directory so the project's .claude/ context is preserved , and a one-click Dangerously skip permissions toggle for unattended runs. Quil also runs an MCP server quil mcp that exposes 18 tools so any MCP-capable client can read pane output, send keystrokes, snapshot a workspace, and query per-pane memory usage. Any other AI tool can be wrapped in a custom TOML plugin that defines its spawn command, resume strategy, and error patterns. Can I paste a screenshot into Claude Code on Windows? Yes. Quil ships a Win32 clipboard image proxy that works around the upstream Claude Code Windows clipboard image bug anthropics/claude-code 32791 . Take a screenshot with Win+Shift+S, focus a Claude Code pane, and press F8 or Ctrl+Alt+V — Windows Terminal eats Ctrl+V before it reaches the TUI . Quil decodes the clipboard DIB, saves a PNG under ~/.quil/paste/ with owner-only 0o600 permissions and a crypto/rand filename suffix, then types the absolute file path into the pane. Claude Code reads the file via its normal file-reading tools. Does Quil work on Windows without WSL? Yes. Quil ships a native Windows binary that uses ConPTY for pseudo-terminal support and Named Pipes for client-daemon IPC. No WSL required. Linux and macOS use creack/pty and Unix domain sockets, respectively. Why does the Windows build include OpenConsole.exe? On Windows 10, the built-in console host conhost.exe mis-renders some TUIs — Claude Code's input box, for example, shows an extra space after the first typed character. Quil fixes this automatically by bundling Microsoft's MIT-licensed OpenConsole the same console host Windows Terminal ships and hosting panes through it; on Windows 10 it is extracted to ~/.quil/conpty/ at first run. Windows 11's console host is already correct, so nothing is extracted there. Attribution and license text are on the /legal page and in THIRD PARTY LICENSES.md. How does the reboot-proof persistence actually work? Quil runs as a client-daemon pair. The daemon quild continuously snapshots workspace state to ~/.quil/workspace.json atomic temp+rename and maintains 500-line ghost buffers per pane as binary files under ~/.quil/buffers/. On reboot the client spawns the daemon, reads the snapshot, re-creates the pane split tree, and replays ghost buffers instantly while shells re-initialise in the background. Can I write my own plugins? Yes. Plugins are single TOML files in ~/.quil/plugins/<name .toml with sections for spawn, resume, keybindings, error handlers, and status lines. No compilation, no restart, hot-reload on save. See the plugin reference on GitHub or the /plugins page for a walk-through. What happens when I upgrade Quil and plugin configs have changed? Quil detects when your on-disk plugin TOML has a lower schema version than the version shipped with the new binary. Instead of silently overwriting your config, it opens a full-screen side-by-side merge dialog at startup: your config on the left editable , the new default on the right read-only . Lines unique to your config are highlighted red, new lines in the default are highlighted green. Copy what you need from the right, edit on the left, then Ctrl+S to save. You can also press F5 to accept the new default entirely. The dialog blocks until resolved — no risk of running with a stale config. What if Quil hangs or a pane stops responding? One command recovers everything: quil restart stops the daemon with escalating force graceful shutdown with a final state snapshot, then SIGTERM, then force-kill — each step has a timeout, so even a fully deadlocked daemon can't resist , starts a fresh one, and reopens your tabs and panes from the last snapshot. AI panes resume their sessions. If only a single pane stops accepting input for example an AI tool wedged mid-turn , Quil shows a 'Pane not accepting input' warning in the notification sidebar while every other pane keeps working — press Alt+R to restart just that pane in place. Is Quil free? Yes. Quil is open source under the MIT License. There's no hosted version, no paid tier, no telemetry. You self-host it on your own machine and it stores all state locally under ~/.quil/. How do I install it? On Linux or macOS: curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/artyomsv/quil/master/scripts/install.sh | sh . Go users can go install github.com/artyomsv/quil/cmd/quil@latest . Windows users download the .zip from the latest GitHub release. Full instructions at /install. § 06 / 06 ━ TAKE IT HOME━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ reboot-proof. ai-native. one static binary. │ │ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Install it. Reboot once. Feel the difference. One binary. ~40 MB. No database. No cloud account. No telemetry. No runtime dependencies. Open source under MIT. Tested on Linux, macOS, and native Windows.