Show HN: Simple tool for FDEs to avoid missing HITL steps in claude code

Answer Claude Code from native macOS notifications. When Claude Code needs permission for a tool, asks you a question, wants a plan approved or finishes a turn, Hook Me Up shows a notification you can act on right there: approve or deny, pick an answer, approve the plan or ask for changes. Click the notification to jump to the session. It is built on Claude Code's hooks and fails open: if anything is off, Claude Code simply shows its usual terminal dialog.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robertodf99/hook-me-up/main/install.sh | bash

The installer downloads the latest release (and checks its SHA-256), installs ~/Applications/Hook Me Up.app, shows the changes it would make to ~/.claude/settings.json and asks before writing them (with a timestamped backup), adds the editor extension to VS Code, VS Code Insiders, Cursor and Windsurf when it finds their command-line tool, and starts the menu-bar agent at login. Run it again to upgrade.

Uninstall:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robertodf99/hook-me-up/main/uninstall.sh | bash

It stops the agent, removes Hook Me Up's hooks from your settings (again after showing the diff and asking), and removes the app, its support folder and the editor extension (with each editor's command-line tool it finds). Your settings backups stay where they are.

Requirements: macOS 14 or later, and Claude Code.

Hook Me Up is also a Claude Code plugin with three commands that run the same installer and ask for your confirmation in the chat:

/plugin marketplace add robertodf99/hook-me-up
/plugin install hook-me-up@hook-me-up

(On Claude Code 2.1.275 or later, /plugin install hook-me-up --marketplace robertodf99/hook-me-up does both in one step.) Then:

• /hook-me-up:install installs or upgrades Hook Me Up: it shows the changes to~/.claude/settings.json and adds the hooks only after you say yes.
• /hook-me-up:doctor checks the installation and explains how to fix what is off.
• /hook-me-up:uninstall shows what would be removed and removes it after you say yes.

The plugin has commands only, no hooks: the hooks live in ~/.claude/settings.json as with the installer. Hooks inside the plugin would run in addition to those, and every request would be notified twice.

Once the agent runs, the installer waits (up to a minute in a terminal, 10 seconds without one) for you to answer macOS's question about notifications, shows a test notification, and tells you what is left to do:

1. Allow notifications for Hook Me Up when macOS asks (or in System Settings → Notifications → Hook Me Up).
2. In the same place, set the style to Alerts , so requests stay on screen until you answer them. On a first install, the installer opens System Settings at Notifications when the style isn't Alerts yet; on an upgrade, only when notifications are off.
3. Restart Claude Code sessions that were already running, so they load the hooks.

When Claude Code…	Notification	Actions, in order
needs permission for a tool	project · Needs permission , with a plain-language summary and warnings such as "⚠︎ Leaves your machine"	Approve, Deny, Approve for session (when Claude Code suggests a session rule)
asks a question with up to four options	project · Question	One action per option, then Reply… for your own answer
asks a question with more options, or a multi-select one	project · Question , the options numbered in the body	Reply…: type 2 ,1, 3 , or an option's label
wants a plan approved	project · Plan to approve , with the first lines of the plan	Approve plan, Request changes… (your text goes back to Claude)
finishes a turn, or waits for a reply	project · Finished /Waiting for your reply	none

• Clicking a notification opens its session : Terminal and iTerm2 select the exact tab. Ghostty (1.3 or later) focuses the terminal whose working directory is the folder Claude Code was started in. When several terminals are there (splits or tabs in the same folder), Hook Me Up briefly sets the title of the session's own terminal to a random marker, asks Ghostty which terminal shows it, puts the old title back and focuses that terminal; the title is back within about a second. When Ghostty doesn't show the marker in time (a fixedtitle = … in its config, or the session changed its title first), the title is cleared instead, so no marker is left behind (a title the session set meanwhile shows again when it next sets one), and Ghostty just comes to the front, as it does when the session has ended, when no terminal is in the folder, or when Ghostty's AppleScript is off (macos-applescript = false ). VS Code and Cursor (and VS Code Insiders and Windsurf) focus the open window that contains the folder Claude Code was started in: that folder's window, the window of the repository a worktree or subfolder belongs to, or a saved.code-workspace that includes it; with theeditor extension , the session's integrated terminal is shown too, even when the window has several. While the session's window is open, a click opens no new window; when no open window contains the folder, the editor just comes to the front (and, with the extension, the front window shows the session's terminal if it has it). The editor keeps its list of windows up to date with a delay, so right after you close windows a click may just bring the editor to the front. Zed and other apps come to the front. The click hands the request to Claude Code's terminal dialog: nothing is approved or answered from it. In a multi-question flow, the answers given so far are dropped and the terminal asks all the questions again.
• macOS shows the first action as a button and the others underOptions when you hover the notification, so the most likely answer comes first.
• Several questions arrive one at a time; Claude gets all the answers after the last. A reply that can't be understood brings the question back with a hint.
• Answering needs an unlocked Mac, so nothing can be approved from the lock screen.
• Notifications are grouped per repository, play the default sound once, and disappear when the request is answered (here or in the terminal), cancelled, or the session moves on.

The ✻ menu-bar item shows how many requests are waiting and offers ** for 30 minutes**, Resume and Quit.

VS Code can't be asked from outside which integrated terminal runs a session, so Hook Me Up comes with a small extension for VS Code, VS Code Insiders, Cursor and Windsurf (plain JavaScript, no dependencies; source in editor-extension/). On a click, the agent writes a request to ~/Library/Application Support/hook-me-up/editor-focus-request.json: a random id, the time and the session's process ids, nothing else (no paths, titles or commands). Every editor window watches that file; the window with a terminal whose process is one of those ids shows it, and the others do nothing. Without the extension (or with it disabled), a click works exactly as before: it focuses the window.

• The installer adds it with each editor's command-line tool (code ,code-insiders ,cursor ,windsurf , on yourPATH or inside the app in/Applications or~/Applications ) and says so; if adding it fails, the install goes on. SetHOOK_ME_UP_NO_EDITOR_EXTENSION=1 to skip it.
• Windows that were already open may need a reload (Developer: Reload Window ) before the extension runs in them.
• The uninstaller removes it. You can also remove it from the editor's Extensions view (it is "Hook Me Up", id hook-me-up.hook-me-up ).
• hook-me-up-setup doctor shows which editors have it (an INFO line; it never fails).
• Profiles: Hook Me Up checks the extension in the default profile's list (where the installer adds it). A window that uses another profile runs it only if that profile has it too; otherwise the click focuses that window as before.

Claude Code ──hook──▶ hook-me-up ──Unix socket──▶ Hook Me Up (menu-bar agent)
     ▲                    │                              │
     └──── decision ◀─────┘ ◀──────── your answer ◀──── native notification

Claude Code runs the hook-me-up command for PermissionRequest, Notification, Stop, UserPromptSubmit and SessionEnd. For a permission request, the hook asks the agent over a local socket and waits; the agent shows a notification and sends back your decision, and the hook prints it for Claude Code. If there is no decision (the agent isn't running, notifications are off, the agent is d, something fails, or the request times out), the hook prints nothing and Claude Code shows its own terminal dialog. You can always answer in the terminal instead; the notification then goes away. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the details.

• Fail-open. The hook outputs a decision only when you made one. Errors never turn into an approval or a denial.
• Local, same-user socket. The socket lives in a private folder (0700 , socket0600 ) and both sides check that the peer runs as the same user (getpeereid ).
• One answer per request. Every request has its own id; the agent answers only on that request's connection, at most once, and the hook ignores any answer for another id. An action only counts if it belongs to the notification currently shown.
• The hook builds the output. Answers never carry tool input from the agent: the hook buildsupdatedInput from its owntool_input .
• Session-only rules. "Approve for session" keeps only rule and directory suggestions and always scopes them to the session; it never writes to your settings.
• Unlocked Mac only for every answering action.
• Clicks reach only the session's own terminal. For Ghostty, the title marker is written only to the session's tty, and only while the session runs and that tty is still its controlling terminal (a character device of yours with the same device number, opened without following links); the marker is random, goes to Ghostty's AppleScript as an argument (never as script text), and the title written back has no control characters. The editor extension acts only on a request that is exactly what the agent writes: a file of yours in your private support folder, not a link, at most 4 KiB, less than 5 seconds old, each id once, 1 to 16 process ids; it never writes the file, logs nothing and sends nothing anywhere.
• Careful installer. It verifies the package checksum, shows the settings diff and asks first, backs up, writes atomically, and refuses to write if the file changed meanwhile.
• No content in logs.~/Library/Logs/hook-me-up.log and the unified log (subsystemio.github.robertodf99.hook-me-up ) hold event kinds and short ids only.

Hook Me Up is signed ad-hoc: it has no Apple Developer ID and is not notarized. A Developer ID is a paid Apple membership, and this project won't buy one. What you see because of that:

• System Settings → General → Login Items (Login Items & Extensions on newer macOS) lists Hook Me Up under Allow in the Background , marked as from an unidentified developer.
• When the installer starts the agent, macOS may show a notice that Hook Me Up added an item that can run in the background. That is the LaunchAgent that starts the agent at login.
• codesign -dv ~/Applications/"Hook Me Up.app" showsSignature=adhoc .

Why the install isn't blocked. Gatekeeper checks apps that carry the quarantine flag (com.apple.quarantine), which browsers and other apps add to what they download. curl doesn't add it, so the app the installer unpacks opens normally. The same zip downloaded with a browser would be quarantined, and Gatekeeper would block the app from opening.

What to do. Keep the Login Items entry enabled: turning it off stops the agent from starting at login, and requests then go to the terminal dialog. Install with the script rather than by down the zip in a browser. Or build it yourself from this repository (Building from source).

How to check what you installed.

codesign --verify --strict --deep ~/Applications/"Hook Me Up.app" checks that no file changed since the package was signed. An ad-hoc signature can't tell you who signed it. #

The installer compares the zip with the .sha256 file published in the same release. That catches a corrupted or cut-short download. It doesn't protect against a compromised account or release: whoever can replace the zip can replace its checksum too. #

Releases from v0.2.0 on carry a GitHub build provenance attestation, which ties the zip to the workflow run and the commit that built it:

gh release download v0.2.0 --repo robertodf99/hook-me-up --pattern '*.zip'
gh attestation verify hook-me-up-0.2.0-macos.zip --repo robertodf99/hook-me-up \
  --signer-workflow robertodf99/hook-me-up/.github/workflows/release.yml
ditto -x -k hook-me-up-0.2.0-macos.zip unpacked
diff -r unpacked/HookMeUp.app ~/Applications/"Hook Me Up.app"

This shows the zip was built by this repository's release workflow from that commit. It says nothing about what the code at that commit does: reading the source, or building it yourself, is still the strongest check.

The installer and uninstaller read these environment variables:

Variable	Effect
HOOK_ME_UP_VERSION=v1.2.3	Install that release instead of the latest
HOOK_ME_UP_YES=1	Change ~/.claude/settings.json without asking (non-interactive installs)
HOOK_ME_UP_ZIP=<path>	Install a local package (its .sha256 must sit next to it)
HOOK_ME_UP_NO_ONBOARDING=1	Skip the notification check after starting the agent (no waiting, no test notification, System Settings stays closed)
HOOK_ME_UP_NO_EDITOR_EXTENSION=1	Don't add the editor extension to VS Code, VS Code Insiders, Cursor or Windsurf

Example: curl -fsSL …/install.sh | HOOK_ME_UP_YES=1 bash. Without a terminal and without HOOK_ME_UP_YES=1, the installer changes nothing in your settings and prints the command to run.

To take a break, use ** for 30 minutes** in the menu bar: requests go to the terminal until it ends or you choose Resume.

Requires Xcode 16 or later (Swift 6).

make            # build the hook, the installer CLI and the agent
make test       # unit tests
make lint       # swift format lint (make format to apply)
make app        # .build/HookMeUp.app (with the editor extension in Contents/Resources)
make vsix       # the editor extension alone: .build/hook-me-up.vsix
make install    # package this checkout and run install.sh with it
make uninstall  # run uninstall.sh
make dist VERSION=1.2.3 UNIVERSAL=1   # .build/dist/hook-me-up-1.2.3-macos.zip and .sha256

docs/TESTING.md lists the automated checks and a manual end-to-end checklist. Pushing a v* tag publishes a release with GitHub Actions.

Start with the doctor. It checks the app, the LaunchAgent, the running agent, the hooks in ~/.claude/settings.json and the notification settings, and says how to fix each problem (it changes nothing itself):

~/Applications/"Hook Me Up.app"/Contents/MacOS/hook-me-up-setup doctor

From Claude Code, run /hook-me-up:doctor.

The agent writes its log to ~/Library/Logs/hook-me-up.log.

No notifications. Check System Settings → Notifications → Hook Me Up. While notifications are off, every request goes to the terminal and the log says how to turn them on. #

Nothing happens at all. Make sure the agent runs (✻ in the menu bar; else run the installer again) and restart your Claude Code sessions so they load the hooks. #

The agent's folder was deleted (~/Library/Application Support/hook-me-up , say by a cleanup tool): the agent notices within about 5 seconds, creates it again and keeps listening (the log sayssocket was removed or replaced; listening again ). Requests in between go to the terminal. #

The icon is out of date after an upgrade. macOS caches it:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -f ~/Applications/"Hook Me Up.app"
killall NotificationCenter usernoted

If it is still stale, log out and back in. #

Login Items shows "unidentified developer". Releases are signed ad-hoc; keep the item enabled. SeeWhy macOS says "unidentified developer" for what that means and how to check what you installed. #

Clicking a notification doesn't select the tab. The first time, macOS asks to let Hook Me Up control Terminal, iTerm2 or Ghostty; allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation. With several Ghostty terminals in the session's folder, the log says why one wasn't picked (ghostty: title marker not seen , for instance when Ghostty's config setstitle ). In VS Code and the editors built on it, the terminal is shown only with theeditor extension : check it with the doctor, and reload windows opened before it was installed.

Tried it? Tell me what worked and what broke in Feedback & ideas; questions go to Q&A. For a bug, open an issue with the output of hook-me-up-setup doctor.

The app icon is drawn from the Claude symbol on Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0); see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

source & further reading

github.com — original article Show HN: Selfhost pi agents API with Linux desktop sandbox Show HN: Rex-teams – harness agnostic subagents and alarms for Rex terminal Show HN: A local-first AI agent for the desktop, no Electron, any LLM endpoint