Claude Code Notifier

Never miss when Claude Code needs your attention! Get instant VS Code notifications — with sound — when Claude asks questions or needs permissions.

Features

• VS Code Notifications — Get notified directly in VS Code when Claude needs you
• Sound + OS Notifications — Hear it even when you're focused on another app (macOS, Windows, Linux)
• Smart Filtering — Only notifies when Claude is blocked, not during autonomous tool use
• Zero Configuration — Hooks install automatically on first activation

Installation

Install from the VS Code Marketplace — that's it. The extension sets up everything automatically on first launch.

code --install-extension erdemgiray.claude-code-notifier

Testing

Open the command palette (Cmd+Shift+P) and run Claude Code: Send Test Notification to verify everything works.

If something is missing — say the sound plays but no banner appears — run Claude Code: Diagnose Notifications. It sends each kind of notification one at a time, clearly labelled, then prints a report saying what worked and what to fix.

Settings

Open VS Code Settings and search for Claude Code Notifier to configure:

Notify on Permission Request — Claude is asking for permission to run a command. On by default.

Notify on Question — Claude needs to ask you a question before continuing. On by default. In practice this covers questions raised by MCP servers; Claude's own multiple-choice questions do not announce themselves, so they cannot be picked up yet.

Notify on Task Complete — Claude finished a task and is waiting for your next instruction. Off by default. This fires every time Claude hands control back to you, in the terminal and in the editor panel alike.

Notify on Subagent Stop — A Claude subagent finished its task. Off by default.

System Notification — Show an OS-level pop-up in addition to the VS Code notification. On by default.

Sound — Play a sound when Claude needs your attention. On by default.

Notification Delay — Seconds to wait before playing sound and showing the OS notification. If you dismiss the VS Code popup within this time, the sound and OS notification are cancelled. Default: 0 (immediate).

Suppress When Focused — When enabled, skips the sound and OS notification if VS Code is already your active window. The VS Code popup still appears. Off by default.

Troubleshooting

Start with Claude Code: Diagnose Notifications from the command palette — it checks the setup, sends a labelled test of each notification type, and tells you what to do about anything that failed.

The VS Code popup appears but no banner shows up on macOS

This is a macOS permission question, not a setup problem. Without terminal-notifier installed, banners are sent by macOS's built-in scripting tool and are attributed to Script Editor — so if Script Editor is not allowed to send notifications, nothing appears and nothing reports an error.

• Open System Settings → Notifications → Script Editor and allow notifications
• Check that Focus / Do Not Disturb is off
• Or install terminal-notifier, which lets banners appear as VS Code itself, with its icon and its notification settings: brew install terminal-notifier

A question from Claude never notifies me

Claude's own multiple-choice question box does not announce itself to anything outside Claude Code, so there is nothing for the extension to react to. Turn on Notify on Task Complete instead: you will be told the moment Claude stops and needs you, which covers the case you actually care about.

No notification at all

• Check that the extension is active: Extensions panel → search erdemgiray.claude-code-notifier
• Verify ~/.claude/notify.js exists and ~/.claude/settings.json contains the hook
• Restart VS Code once after updating the extension. The hooks are re-checked on startup, and a release that adds a new one only takes effect after that.

Logs

• Open Help → Toggle Developer Tools → Console to see extension logs

License

MIT

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for architecture details and development setup. Please open an issue before submitting a pull request.