Focus

General Workflow

To get the most out of back2vibing focus:

1. Start an agent (CLI, extension, or IDE).
2. Wait 1-2 seconds for the success overlay or prompt to appear. This allows back2vibing to capture the active window and project context.
3. Switch away to your next task.
4. When the agent finishes, back2vibing will bring you back to the right place based on your Focus Strategy.

Focus Strategies

Choose how you want to be interrupted (or not) when an agent completes:

• Autofocus: Brings the app to the front immediately. It includes “busy detection” so it won’t interrupt you if you are actively typing in another window.
• Interactive: Shows a floating overlay with a “Focus” button. You choose exactly when to jump back.
• Smart-O (Recommended): The best of both worlds. It will autofocus if the app is on your current Space, but uses an interactive prompt if a disruptive Space switch would be required.
• macOS Notification: Uses standard system notifications. You only jump back if you click the notification banner.

Global Controls That Affect Focus

Some controls outside the strategy picker can suppress or change focus behavior:

Control	Where	Effect
System Enabled / Disabled	Focus tab and menu bar tray	Master switch. When disabled, no focus changes or completion sounds run.
Sound Enabled / Muted	Focus tab and menu bar tray	Mutes back2vibing sounds only. Focus behavior still runs.
Disable during screen share	General tab (Pro)	Skips focus switching and sounds while screen sharing/recording is active.

For sound behavior details, see Audio & Alerts. For tray controls, see Menu Bar & Tray.

Focus Fallback & Overrides

When an agent finishes, back2vibing tries to restore focus to the exact window or session it was tracking. If it cannot find that session (e.g., if you closed the window), it will default to a fallback application.

Setting Defaults

You can set your Default Focus App in the Focus tab. This is the app that will always be brought to the front if no specific session is found.

Per-Agent Overrides

If you want different agents to focus different apps (e.g., Cursor for one project, VS Code for another), you can set Per-Agent Overrides. This allows you to specify exactly which app should be focused for a particular agent, overriding the global default.

Note: In the GUI tier, you can pick your default app. Per-agent override management is available in Pro.

Which Tier is Right for You?

The best focus strategy depends on your workflow and how many agents you run simultaneously:

• Free GUI Tier: Perfect if you typically run one agent at a time. back2vibing will bring the main application to the foreground so you can continue working.
• Pro Tier: Essential as you scale up to two or more concurrent agents. When you have multiple tasks running across different projects, it can quickly get out of hand. With Pro, back2vibing always brings you back to the exact window, tmux pane, or iTerm2 tab where the agent finished, letting you continue your work seamlessly.

Why tmux Is Integral (Pro)

tmux is the most reliable way to restore focus to the exact terminal pane where your agent finished.

• Each agent can run in its own pane.
• back2vibing tracks that pane context while work is in progress.
• When the agent finishes, focus returns to that exact pane instead of just a generic terminal window.

If you run many agents at once, tmux gives the cleanest “jump back to the right place” behavior.

Generic Agent Support

For agents that are not supported out-of-the-box, you can use tmux monitoring to loosely detect when an agent is done. back2vibing watches the pane state to trigger the focus switch even without direct integration.

Recommended tmux Workflow (Pro)

1. Open tmux and create one pane per active agent.
2. Start each agent from the pane where you want completion focus to return.
3. Keep working elsewhere while agents run.
4. Let back2vibing restore focus to the finished pane.

tmux: b2v-dev

1: claude

Claude thinking...

2: gemini

Gemini thinking...

0: nvim

fn main() {
  println!("vibing");
}

[b2v] 0:nvim* 1:claude- 2:gemini20:26

auth.ts — Code

auth.ts

export async validateSession() {

const session = db...

where: eq(sessions...)

// restored state

b2v

Refactor?

On it. Terminal.

➜

masterLn 10, Col 1

Agents working...

iTerm2 Integration (Pro)

In Pro, back2vibing also restores iTerm2 context intelligently:

• Captures your active iTerm2 session/tab identity during tracking.
• Reopens focus to the matching iTerm2 tab/session when the agent finishes.
• Works well with tabbed and split workflows, so you return to the right working surface.

Best results come from combining iTerm2 + tmux: iTerm2 restores the terminal context, and tmux restores the exact pane-level agent context.

Cursor, Zed & IDE Extensions

back2vibing supports Cursor, Antigravity, Zed, and VS Code extensions for Claude, Gemini, OpenCode, and Codex.

While these aren’t “first-class” citizens (we can’t focus the exact agent conversation bubble inside the editor yet), back2vibing will intelligently switch to the correct window when the agent finishes. If you work across multiple windows or monitors, this ensures you are always brought back to the right project context.

Focus Strategy Pairing

After you set up tmux/iTerm2, choose your preferred strategy in Setup Wizard:

• Autofocus for fastest return.
• Interactive for prompt-before-focus.
• Smart-O to avoid disruptive Space switches.
• macOS Notification for click-to-focus only.