Using AppleScript with tmux to create new windows/tabs with sessions that are known to tmux

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Detailed steps to reproduce the problem: I'm trying to use AppleScript to start a tmux session and create new windows that is known to tmux's session/window hierarchy, but also still able to be scripted in AppleScript to send commands.

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later use scripting additions

tell application "iTerm" activate

set tmux to (create window with profile "production")
--set tmux to (make new session at the end of sessions)
--set tmux to (create window)
tell tmux
	set tmuxsession to current session
	
	tell tmuxsession
		write text "tmux -CC -L development"
		--write text "tmux -CC attach"
	end tell
	
	tell tmuxsession
		-- This creates a new window, but tmux doesn't know about it
		--set myterm to (create window with profile "production")
		
		tell application "System Events"
			-- This will create a window that tmux has a reference to
			-- but how can I get a reference to it in AppleScript?
			keystroke "n" using {control down, shift down, command down}
			--keystroke "d"
			keystroke "echo 'new window'"
		end tell
		
		-- This gives this error:
		-- iTerm got an error: Can’t get current window of session id "9B1CF226-DDE9-4D75-B485-BAEC71398BBE" of tab 1 of window id 68948.

		--offending object:

		--	current window of session id "9B1CF226-DDE9-4D75-B485-BAEC71398BBE" of tab 1 of window id 68948
		set myterm to current window
		
		tell myterm
			write text "echo 'boo'"
		end tell
		
		tell application "System Events"
			-- This will create a window that tmux has a reference to
			-- but how can I get a reference to it in AppleScript?
			keystroke "n" using {control down, shift down, command down}
			--keystroke "d"
		end tell
		
		set myterm2 to current window
		
		tell myterm2
			write text "echo 'yaaa'"
		end tell
		
	end tell
end tell

end tell

What happened: I can use this to create a new window that tmux knows about:

keystroke "n" using {control down, shift down, command down}

But I can't get a reference to the window for continued operations.

When I use this:

	tell tmuxsession
		-- This creates a new window, but tmux doesn't know about it
		set myterm to (create window with profile "production")

It will create a new window, but tmux doesn't know about it.

What should have happened:

I'd like to be able to do this:

set myterm to (create tmux window with profile "production")

or

set myterm to (create tmux tab with profile "production") -- Not sure if this is the syntax for working with tabs in AppleScript

Wow, I applaud your efforts in working around this deficiency of the Applescript API. I'm not quite sure it's possible to do what you want with the current API. The proper solution would be to extend the applescript interface to support tmux windows. I am trying to gradually sunset Applescript in favor of a new protobuf based API, but it's not ready yet. I'm going to repurpose this issue to be a feature request to support tmux windows in the protobuf API.

changed milestone to %Review for next version

@gnachman It also appears that names or unique IDs or IDs of windows do not persist across TMUX sessions, between detaching/reattaching.

Whenever I set a name to a window that I know was connected to a specific server, it reverts to the default window naming when reattaching to the tmux session.

Good point. I'll have a look at that issue alongside the problem of tmux+applescript in general.