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

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:

#!/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 Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode Register it In.claude/settings.json:

{ "hooks": { "Notification": [ { "hooks": [ { "type": "command", "command": ".claude/hooks/notify.sh" } ] } ] } } Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode Check the hooks page for your installed Claude Code version; payload fields and matcher options can change between releases.

I keep this hook alongside the allow-list, the safety hooks, and a short house-rules file in Vildanden Agent Config. The free sample has enough to try the pattern today.