AI Terminal Sessions

MultiDocker can spawn project-scoped terminal sessions running an AI coding tool, a plain shell, or a shell inside one of the project’s containers. Each session is a detached tmux session, so it keeps running after you close the app and you can re-attach later.

Available tools

Tool	What it runs
`claude`	Claude Code (`claude`, or `claude --sandbox` in sandbox mode).
`copilot`	GitHub Copilot CLI (`gh copilot` if the extension is installed, else `copilot`).
`shell`	Your login shell in the project directory.
`exec`	A shell inside a project container via `docker compose exec`.

Check which tools are installed on your machine:

mdocker terminal tools     # JSON list with availability per tool

Create and manage sessions

mdocker terminal new aurora --tool claude              # start a Claude Code session
mdocker terminal new aurora --tool claude --sandbox    # sandbox mode
mdocker terminal new aurora --tool shell
mdocker terminal list aurora                           # list sessions
mdocker terminal kill aurora <session-id>              # end one session
mdocker terminal prune aurora                          # drop dead registry entries

Sessions are named mdocker__<project>__<id> in tmux, and their state lives under .projects[<name>].sessions[] in the registry.

Container shell (`exec`)

To open a shell inside a running container, use terminal exec. It builds the correct docker compose exec invocation for the project’s COMPOSE_FILE stack:

mdocker terminal exec aurora shop            # bash (default) in the shop container
mdocker terminal exec aurora db sh           # a specific shell

Where sessions start

By default a session opens in the project directory. You can set a per-project start path (absolute, ~/-relative, or relative to the project), and a separate “open in editor” path:

mdocker terminal path aurora                 # show the current start path
mdocker terminal path aurora ./backend       # set it
mdocker terminal editor-path aurora ~/Projects/aurora

Attaching from the macOS app

The app lists a project’s sessions and attaches to them via SwiftTerm. Because the sessions are real tmux sessions, they survive an app quit and can be re-attached later. See Attached Terminals.

MultiDocker · Coding9 GmbH