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The operator’s surfaces

The operator works flume from whichever surface is at hand: the command line, a Claude Code session, or herdr. flume keeps one plugin per host under plugins/ beside its core, plugins/claude and plugins/herdr, as millpond and sounding keep theirs.

The command line

CommandRun byDoes
flume launchthe operator, millpond, headwater, sounding, crewMakes a place for a repository, a kind, a brief and a name, makes it ready, and starts its first stage.
flume statusanyoneReports each place’s kind, stage, agent, deliverable and submission, and a change’s tasks ticked. --json gives the same to callers.
flume tellthe operator, a callerSends text to a place’s agent as a prompt, or fails with nothing typed (Prompt delivery).
flume stopthe operator, a callerEnds a place’s agent. Fails when the agent did not exit, and ends a working agent only with --force.
flume retrythe operator, a callerStarts a place’s stage again, with a fresh agent and its prompt.
flume tidythe operator, a callerRemoves each place whose work landed or was dropped, and keeps a branch that holds commits its target lacks (Tidying).

The Claude Code plugin

  • /launch <brief> in every session launches the brief, while the session goes on with its own work.
  • status over MCP lets any session read where each place stands.

The herdr plugin

  • The sidebar shows every place in flight, with its kind, its stage and its agent’s state, and a change’s tasks ticked.
  • Keys open a place’s pane, tell its agent, stop it and retry its stage, and launch from herdr.
  • A sounding waiting on the operator shows as a row there, since soundings share flume’s sidebar (sounding’s surfaces).
sidebar the selected place places in flight fix--bump-parser submission · working change--retention code · 5 of 8 tasks · working fix--flaky-retry code · waiting take-library-5 waiting on the operator The stage's agent places/change--retention the code stage's session, a fresh agent, ticking the change's tasks as it works 5 of 8 tasks ticked launch open tell stop retry
The sidebar shows each place's stage and its agent's state, with a change's tasks and a sounding that waits on the operator among them. The keys act on the selected place.

Where a stage’s agent runs

Each stage’s agent runs in a herdr pane, where the herdr plugin shows it and its keys reach it. Where herdr is not running, flume prints the command that starts the agent, for the operator to run. Either way flume confirms the prompt in the agent’s transcript and reads the stage’s end from its deliverable (Prompt delivery).