Notification Systems

When running multiple Claude instances, you need to know when each one finishes. Without notifications, you either poll constantly (breaking your focus on the active instance) or check too infrequently (leaving a finished instance idle while you could have issued the next prompt). Notifications solve this by pushing completion alerts to you, so you respond to finished instances exactly when they are ready.

The simplest notification is a terminal bell. Claude Code can be configured to emit a bell character when it finishes a task. Most terminal emulators translate this into a visual indicator — a badge on the tab, a bounce in the dock, or a highlight in the taskbar. This requires zero setup beyond enabling terminal bell notifications in your terminal preferences.

For more persistent notifications, hook into your operating system's notification center. On macOS, a stop hook can use osascript to display a native notification: osascript -e 'display notification "Task complete" with title "Claude Code".' On Linux, notify-send achieves the same result. On Windows, PowerShell's BurntToast module or simple toast notifications provide equivalent functionality. These system notifications persist in the notification center, so you do not miss them even if you are in another application.

Webhook notifications extend the pattern to external systems. A stop hook that posts to a Slack channel, sends a Pushover notification, or triggers a webhook on completion lets you monitor Claude instances from your phone, a different computer, or even a smart watch. The payload can include the task summary, the branch name, and whether the quality loop passed or failed — enough context to decide whether you need to return to the terminal immediately or can continue what you are doing.