Claude Noti
You give Claude Code a task and switch to something else. Claude hits a command it needs permission for, and stops. You find out twenty minutes later.
Claude Noti puts that moment on your screen, wherever you are, and gets you back to the right window in one click.
What it does
- Tells you the moment Claude needs you — a permission request, a question, or the end of a turn.
- Says what is being asked. The command Claude wants to run, or the question and the options on offer. Enough to decide whether it is worth switching windows for, without switching windows to find out.
- One click puts you back. Not "brings VS Code forward" — it raises the specific window that session belongs to, even with a dozen open.
- Stays quiet when you are already there. If you are looking at that window, you get a line in the status bar instead of a banner across your screen.
- One notification, not one per window. However many windows are open, exactly one of them speaks up.
Before you start
You need Claude Code and either macOS 13 or later, or Windows 10 version 1809 or later.
On macOS
One small command-line tool:
brew install vjeantet/tap/alerter
Without alerter the extension falls back to osascript. That still shows a notification, but macOS gives it no way to report a click — so the "click to get back" part stops working, which is most of the point.
Then open System Settings → Notifications, find Terminal, and set its style to Alerts.
Two things about that are worth saying plainly, because both surprise people:
- Look under Terminal, not "alerter". There is no "alerter" entry and there never will be — it posts under Terminal's identity, so Terminal's settings govern it. The trade-off is real: this also changes how Terminal.app's own notifications behave.
- Alerts, not Banners. Banners vanish after a few seconds. If you are away from the machine — the entire situation this extension exists for — a banner is gone before you look back.
On Windows
Nothing to install, and nothing to configure. Notifications go through the PowerShell that ships with Windows, and clicking one gets back to your window through the vscode:// handler VS Code registered when you installed it.
Check only that notifications are on at all, under Settings → System → Notifications, and that Do not disturb is off.
There is no equivalent of the macOS alert-style trap here. A Windows toast that leaves the screen has not expired — it has moved to the notification centre (Win+N) and is still sitting there, still clickable.
Getting started
- Install the extension.
- Say yes when it offers to install the Claude Code hooks, or run Claude Noti: Install Claude Code Hooks from the command palette.
- Start a new Claude Code session. Hooks are read when a session starts, so an already-running one will not pick them up.
- Run Claude Noti: Send Test Notification, switch to another app, and check it arrives.
If it does not, Claude Noti: Run Diagnostics checks every link in the chain and prints which one is broken.
Settings
Everything is under claudeNoti in VS Code settings. Three of them also have pickers in the command palette, because their values are impossible to guess.
What you get told about
Turn off whatever you find noisy. Each is independent.
| Setting |
Default |
Fires when |
events.permissionPrompt |
true |
Claude asks to run a tool, or puts a set of options in front of you |
events.idlePrompt |
true |
Claude has been waiting on you for a while |
events.agentNeedsInput |
true |
A subagent or an MCP server needs an answer |
events.stop |
true |
A turn finished |
enabled |
true |
Master switch for all of it |
events.stop is the one people turn off first — it fires at the end of every turn, which is useful when you step away and noise when you do not. Completions from subagents are always ignored, since a single turn can spawn many.
How it looks and sounds
| Setting |
Default |
Notes |
sound |
"" (silent) |
On macOS a sound name such as Glass or Sosumi; on Windows one of Default, IM, Mail, Reminder, SMS, Alarm, Call |
notificationIcon |
"" |
On macOS, empty uses the bell icon and none keeps Terminal's; on Windows, empty keeps the editor's own. A path uses your image either way |
timeoutSeconds |
0 |
0 means the notification waits until you deal with it |
Use Claude Noti: Choose Notification Sound rather than typing a name. On macOS it plays each sound as you move down the list, which is the only sensible way to pick one, and it includes anything you have put in ~/Library/Sounds. Windows sounds are system events that only a real notification can play, so there the list is names alone.
The icon default differs because the sender does. On macOS the notification is posted under Terminal's identity and would otherwise wear Terminal's icon, so the bell is substituted; on Windows it already comes from the editor and carries the right icon, so nothing is substituted.
timeoutSeconds: 0 is deliberate. A notification that expires while you are in another application is one you never see, and that is precisely when you needed it. Set a number only if you find them piling up — though on Windows there is little reason to, since a toast you have not dealt with moves to the notification centre rather than disappearing.
When it should stay quiet
| Setting |
Default |
Notes |
suppressWhenFocused |
true |
No banner when you are already looking at that window |
minIntervalMs |
1500 |
Ignores repeats from the same session inside this window |
There is also a bell in the status bar. Click it to mute this window when you want to work undisturbed for a while; it does not persist across restarts, so you cannot accidentally leave it off forever.
The rest
Most people never touch these.
| Setting |
Default |
Notes |
hookScope |
"user" |
Register hooks for every project, or only this one |
notifyUnmatchedSessions |
false |
Also notify for Claude sessions running outside any open workspace |
onFocusCommands |
[] |
Commands to run after the window comes forward, e.g. workbench.action.terminal.focus to land in the terminal |
notifierPath |
"" |
macOS only. Point at alerter yourself if it is somewhere unusual |
impersonateEditor |
false |
macOS only. Borrow the editor's icon. Likely to stop notifications appearing at all — macOS only displays notifications from a sender it recognises. Test before relying on it |
The last two do nothing on Windows. notifierPath has no binary to point at, and impersonateEditor has nothing to fix: a toast already comes from the editor under its own identity.
Commands
| Command |
What it does |
| Send Test Notification |
Checks the whole chain, including the click |
| Run Diagnostics |
Reports which link is broken, and why |
| Choose Notification Sound |
Pick a sound, hearing each as you go |
| Choose Notification Icon |
The bell, the sender's own icon, or your own image |
| Choose How Long Notifications Stay |
Wait for you, or close after a set time |
| Toggle Mute |
Silence this window for a while |
| Install / Remove Claude Code Hooks |
Register with Claude Code, or undo it |
| Show Log |
Open the output channel |
What it changes on your machine
Worth knowing, since this extension asks Claude Code to run a script:
- It writes a script to
~/.claude-noti/ (hook.sh on macOS; hook.ps1 and toast.ps1 on Windows) and registers it in ~/.claude/settings.json so Claude Code will run it. Remove Claude Code Hooks takes out only its own entries and leaves anything else you have in there alone. It keeps a .bak copy before writing, and refuses to touch the file at all if it is not valid JSON.
- Windows of the editor talk to each other locally — over a Unix socket in a directory only your account can read on macOS, over a named pipe on Windows. No network port is opened, and nothing leaves your machine.
- On Windows the hook is registered with
-ExecutionPolicy Bypass for that one invocation. It does not change the policy for anything else on your machine.
When it does not work
Nothing happens at all. Hooks are read when a Claude Code session starts. Restart the session, then run diagnostics.
macOS
Notifications appear, but clicking does nothing. alerter is missing and the fallback is in use. Install it with the brew command above.
No notification appears anywhere. Click the clock in the menu bar to open Notification Center. If the messages are sitting there, delivery works and only the alert style is wrong — set Terminal to Alerts. If Notification Center is empty too, a Focus mode is filtering them.
They reach Notification Center, the settings are right, and still nothing appears on screen. macOS's own notification agent can wedge into a state where it files notifications away without ever drawing them. Nothing in System Settings reveals this and no amount of changing the style fixes it. Restart the agent:
killall NotificationCenter
It relaunches by itself and banners come back. Worth trying before assuming a notification tool is at fault — this affects every app on the machine, not just this one.
Windows
A toast appeared and then vanished. It has not been lost. Press Win+N — it is in the notification centre, still clickable. That is what timeoutSeconds: 0 relies on.
No notification appears anywhere. Run diagnostics: it asks Windows directly whether it would deliver a notification from this sender, and reports the answer. The usual causes are notifications switched off for the editor, or Do not disturb.
Notifications appear, but clicking does nothing. Diagnostics reports whether the vscode:// handler is registered. It is created when VS Code is installed, so a missing one usually means a portable or hand-copied install; repairing or reinstalling VS Code puts it back.
Notifications stopped after an update. Check that both hook.ps1 and toast.ps1 are in %USERPROFILE%\.claude-noti\. Run Install Claude Code Hooks to write them again.
Anywhere
Two notifications for one prompt. That should not happen. Please open an issue with the output of Run Diagnostics from both windows.
Linux
Not yet. On an unsupported OS the extension tells you so and stays out of the way.
Contributing
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome at github.com/luongdong059/claude-noti. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how it is put together and how to run it locally.
MIT licensed.
