Key Takeaways
- Yardmaster turns Claude Code sessions into named, grouped, hook-driven panes with token meters and worktree support.
- Install via Homebrew and reclaim control of parallel workflows.
The Problem: Your Terminal Can't Tell Claudes Apart
If you're running more than one Claude Code session, you know the pain. A session that's been churning for 20 minutes, one waiting for your permission, and a dead pane — they all look like identical rectangles of scrolling text. You have to tab through, squint, and guess.
Yardmaster (open source, GitHub: blothecap/yardmaster) fixes this by making Claude sessions first-class citizens in a macOS terminal. It's not a wrapper that scrapes output; it speaks Claude Code's own hook protocol, so status is always accurate.
What Changed: Claude Sessions Get a UI
Yardmaster gives each Claude session a dedicated row in a sidebar, grouped by project. Each row shows:
- Live git branch — know which context you're in at a glance
- Activity line — the exact tool running right now (e.g.,
▸ Bash: npm test) or the waiting question - Working timer — how long it's been running
- Token meter — e.g.,
803k tok— that survives app restarts - Status dot — driven by Claude Code hooks:
working,needs-you,idle,exited
No more guessing whether Claude is stuck or just thinking.
What It Means For You: Parallel Work Without Chaos
1. The Waiting-on-You Inbox
Press ⌘E to open an inbox of every blocked session, each showing the exact question it's asking. You can jump to it or approve/deny right from the list (keyboard shortcut /d). This turns triage into a single keystroke instead of tab-hopping.
2. Worktree Sessions
One click creates an isolated git worktree (repo/.worktrees/<branch>) for a session. Now you can run several Claudes on the same repo in parallel without merge conflicts. The Changes pane shows each session's diff and commits, with one-click merge (conflict-safe) or push + PR via gh.
3. Fork Session
Right-click any session to duplicate its entire conversation into a fresh worktree branched from the session's HEAD. Try a risky refactor or two competing approaches without gambling your accumulated context. This is huge for experimentation.
4. Real Terminals, Plural
⌘T opens a login-shell tab beside any Claude session — as many as you want. A standalone Terminals workspace turns Yardmaster into a plain multi-tab terminal with no Claude required. Scrollback survives tab flips via replay buffers.
5. Session Persistence
Sessions survive app restarts and resume via claude --resume. Per-session CLI flags (like --model opus) persist too. Your context is never lost.
Try It Now
Requirements: macOS on Apple silicon, Xcode Command Line Tools. Node and Claude Code install automatically if missing.
Install via Homebrew (recommended):
brew install --cask --no-quarantine blothecap/tap/yardmaster
Or via curl:
curl -fsSL https://yardmaster.me/install.sh | bash
First steps:
- Launch Yardmaster and start a Claude Code session in a project folder.
- Open a second session in the same repo — use the worktree button to avoid conflicts.
- Press
⌘Eto see the inbox when Claude asks you something. - Right-click a session to fork it and try an experimental approach.
Why This Matters for Your Workflow
Claude Code's power comes from long-running, context-rich sessions. But that power creates a management problem: how do you track five of them at once? Yardmaster's hook-based status means you never waste time checking a dead session. The token meter helps you budget context, and worktrees let you parallelize without fear.
What's Next
Yardmaster is actively developed — check the GitHub releases for updates. The 25-second demo at yardmaster.me shows the full flow. If you're a heavy Claude Code user on macOS, this is worth 10 minutes to set up. Your future self, juggling four sessions, will thank you.
Source: github.com
