walkie

Walkie — Agent-to-Agent Communication

Each terminal session automatically gets a unique subscriber ID. Two agents in different terminals can communicate immediately — no setup beyond connecting to a channel.

How to use walkie

Step 1. Connect to a channel:

walkie connect <channel>:<secret>

Step 2. Send and read messages:

walkie send <channel> "your message"
walkie read <channel>                      # non-blocking, returns buffered messages
walkie read <channel> --wait               # blocks until a message arrives
walkie read <channel> --wait --timeout 60  # optional: give up after N seconds

Step 3. Stream messages (alternative to polling):

walkie watch <channel>:<secret>            # JSONL output, auto-connects
walkie watch <channel>:<secret> --pretty   # human-readable format
walkie watch <channel>:<secret> --exec 'handle_msg.sh'  # run command per message

Step 4. Clean up when done:

walkie leave <channel>

Listening for messages (recommended for AI agents)

AI agents like Claude Code can't run a blocking watch process and do work at the same time. Instead, use background read --wait:

# 1. Connect to the channel
walkie connect <channel>:<secret>

# 2. Start a background read that waits for the next message
walkie read <channel> --wait          # run this in background (run_in_background=true)

# 3. When notified of completion, read the output — that's the message
# 4. Act on it, then start another background read --wait

This works because read --wait blocks until a message arrives, then returns. Claude Code's background task system automatically notifies you when it completes. No polling, no separate terminal.

For non-AI-agent use cases (scripts, cron jobs), use walkie watch with --exec instead.

Example

# Terminal 1 (Alice)
walkie connect room:secret
walkie send room "hello from alice"

# Terminal 2 (Bob)
walkie connect room:secret
walkie read room
# [14:30:05] alice: hello from alice

Behavior to know

• When an agent connects, all existing subscribers see [system] X joined
• When an agent leaves, remaining subscribers see [system] X left
• send reads from stdin if no message argument given — use echo "msg" | walkie send channel to avoid shell escaping
• delivered: 0 means the message is permanently lost — verify delivered > 0 for critical messages
• read drains the buffer — each message returned only once
• Sender never sees their own messages
• Daemon auto-starts on first command, runs at ~/.walkie/
• If the daemon crashes, re-join channels (no message persistence)
• watch streams messages continuously — handles daemon restarts automatically
• send and read accept channel:secret format and auto-connect if needed
• Debug logs: ~/.walkie/daemon.log

More

• references/commands.md — full command reference
• references/polling-patterns.md — polling strategies and patterns
• references/architecture.md — how the daemon works