Radar for Claude Code

💬 working · ⚠️ needs you · 🟢 done

Claude Code multitasking, done right. Run Claude across several projects and always know which one needs you, without clicking through window after window.

Two features, one glance

• Live status in every window title. 💬 working, ⚠️ needs you, 🟢 done. Every project, one look.
• macOS banners and sounds. A background window pings you when it needs you or finishes, one click jumps right in. The window you're looking at stays quiet.

Tips

• Native tabs are the killer setup. Set "window.nativeTabs": true in your settings and restart: every window packs into one tab bar, a live status board for all your Claudes. Radar works without them too (title bar, window switcher, Mission Control).
• Switch projects without the mouse. Bind workbench.action.showPreviousWindowTab and showNextWindowTab to keys you like (⌘← / ⌘→ work nicely), and step straight to the Claude that needs you. Without native tabs, ⌘` cycles through the windows.
• Presenting? Run Mute banners for 1 hour from the Command Palette, sounds pause too and the markers keep working. For quiet by default, empty claudeRadar.soundWaiting / soundDone or turn claudeRadar.banner off.

Requirements

• VS Code ≥ 1.93 · Claude Code · macOS only
• terminal-notifier (Homebrew) makes banners clickable; without it you still get notification + sound

Setup

Radar offers to set itself up on first launch and keeps reminding you until it's done: both steps are required, no marker shows without them. If terminal-notifier is missing, it offers the Homebrew install too. Or do it via the Command Palette: Add ${claudeRadarStatus} to window.title, then Install Claude hooks (writes to ~/.claude/settings.json, backup first, other hooks stay put). Updates keep the hooks current automatically. Uninstalling? Run Remove Claude hooks first, then uninstall.

Privacy & performance

• No network, no telemetry. Everything happens in local files.
• Event-driven, not polling. Idle cost is effectively zero.
• Safe config writes. Atomic, with a backup. Removal is one command.

How it works

Six Claude hooks drop a file in ~/.claude/tab-status/, named sha256(project path) (first 16 hex chars, realpath-resolved so symlinks match). The content is the status:

• UserPromptSubmit → working (purely visual, no banner/sound)
• Notification / PermissionRequest → waiting
• PreToolUse + AskUserQuestion → waiting (a question needs you too; its own hook, since AskUserQuestion fires neither Stop nor Notification)
• PostToolUse + AskUserQuestion → working (back to working after you answer, since no new UserPromptSubmit fires)
• Stop → stop (done), unless background work is still running, then working stays. Subagents, workflows, and monitors count as work (they finish and wake the session); background shell tasks don't, since a dev server Claude started would otherwise hold the working marker forever. Want shell tasks to count? Turn on claudeRadar.shellTasksKeepWorking.

Each window watches only its own file and shows the marker from state + focus:

• working stays visible the whole time, even in the active window, never with banner/sound, so nothing flickers.
• needs you / done show a persistent marker and banner only when the window's in the background (banner via terminal-notifier, a click focuses the right window). In the active window they flash for ~1 s ("peek") and fade.
• Focusing a window clears an attention marker; working stays, since Claude's still going.

Stale files (sessions with no matching window) are cleaned up after 24 h.

Limits

• The marker is text (emoji) in the title, not a native tab badge, macOS doesn't allow those.
• Stop fires after every response. Fine for the marker and banner (idempotent, one banner per project, focused windows skipped).
• Multi-root workspaces: the first folder wins.
• Two events at once: the later one wins.

Settings

Give just the symbol, the space is added for you. Empty means no marker for that status.