How to source a script in every panes and windows of a specific tmux session

Question

I have a shell script specific for a project which create environment variables, aliases and run some commands.

I want to create a tmux session for this project which will source my shell script when creating a new pane or window in the tmux session.

How can I specify tmux to source a file or run command in every new panes or windows of a specific session?

Answer 1

Set the default-command option for the session to run your shell (I'll assume it is bash) with the --rcfile option to use your shell script as the initialization file

set-option -g default-command "bash --rcfile yourscript.sh"

Since --rcfile replaces .bashrc, you add source .bashrc to the beginning of yourscript.sh. If you would ordinarily start a login shell in a tmux window, add source .bash_profile instead.

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To have separate default commands for different sessions, you need to create the session first, then set its default command.

tmux new-session -s projectA
tmux set-option -s -t projectA default-command "bash --rcfile projectA.sh"

You might want to define a shell function to simplify setting up a new session, something like

new_session () {
    tmux new-session -s "$1"
    tmux set-option -s -t "$1" default-command "bash --rcfile $1.sh"
}