rz

Agent-to-agent messaging over Zellij panes.

Spawn LLM agents (or any process) in Zellij panes and let them communicate directly — no files, no sockets, just pane IDs.

Install

cargo install rz-cli

Requires Zellij 0.44.0+.

Usage

# Spawn an agent with bootstrap instructions + task prompt
rz spawn --name researcher -p "find all TODOs in the codebase" claude

# Send a message to an agent
rz send terminal_3 "summarize your findings"

# Send raw text (no protocol envelope)
rz send --raw terminal_3 "ls -la"

# List all running panes
rz list

# Read an agent's full scrollback
rz dump terminal_3

# Stream an agent's output in real-time
rz watch terminal_3

# Broadcast to all agents
rz broadcast "wrap up your tasks"

# Visual identification
rz color terminal_3 --bg "#003366"
rz rename terminal_3 researcher

# Close an agent
rz close terminal_3

How it works

rz wraps Zellij's CLI:

rz command	Zellij action
`rz send`	`paste --pane-id` + `write --pane-id 13`
`rz spawn`	`run -- <cmd>` (returns pane ID)
`rz list`	`list-panes --json`
`rz dump`	`dump-screen --pane-id --full`
`rz watch`	`subscribe --pane-id`
`rz close`	`close-pane --pane-id`

Protocol

Messages can be sent as plain text (--raw) or wrapped in an @@RZ: envelope:

@@RZ:{"id":"a1b20000","from":"terminal_0","kind":{"kind":"chat","body":{"text":"hello"}},"ts":1774298000000}

The @@RZ: prefix lets agents distinguish protocol messages from human input. The JSON is not base64-encoded — it's human-readable on the wire.

Bootstrap

When you rz spawn an agent, it automatically receives:

Its identity (pane ID and name)
How to use rz (full command reference with the binary path)
A list of all other active agents

This means spawned agents can immediately communicate without any manual setup.

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0