Get a desktop ping when Claude Code is waiting on you, with a Notification hook

A developer published a Claude Code Notification hook that fires a desktop alert via osascript or notify-send whenever the agent pauses for a permission prompt or idle input, preventing long tasks from stalling unnoticed. The hook reads a JSON payload from stdin, extracts the message field with a short Python one-liner, and is registered under the Notification key in .claude/settings.json, exiting 0 so it never blocks the session.

You kick off a long Claude Code task, switch to another window, and come back twenty minutes later to find it stopped after two minutes, waiting for you to approve one command. A Notification hook fixes that. Claude Code fires it when it needs your attention, such as a permission prompt or an idle wait for input, and the hook receives a small JSON payload on stdin with a message field. Save as .claude/hooks/notify.sh and chmod +x it: bash /usr/bin/env bash notify.sh: desktop ping when Claude Code needs you set -uo pipefail msg=$ python3 -c 'import sys,json; print json.load sys.stdin .get "message","Claude Code needs you" ' 2 /dev/null || echo "Claude Code needs you" if command -v osascript /dev/null; then osascript -e "display notification \"${msg//\"/}\" with title \"Claude Code\"" elif command -v notify-send /dev/null; then notify-send "Claude Code" "$msg" else printf '\a' terminal bell as a last resort fi exit 0 In .claude/settings.json : { "hooks": { "Notification": { "hooks": { "type": "command", "command": ".claude/hooks/notify.sh" } } } } Check the hooks page for your installed Claude Code version; payload fields and matcher options can change between releases. exit 0 . A notification hook should never block the session. settings.json , so you get pinged for decisions that matter, not for every ls . I keep this hook alongside the allow-list, the safety hooks, and a short house-rules file in Vildanden Agent Config https://justly-mia-429.rehost.page/ . The free sample has enough to try the pattern today.