Notifications & status

Ghostex tracks agent activity across sessions and surfaces it through sidebar badges, optional floating counters, menu bar indicators, completion sounds, and macOS attention notifications.

StatusSoundsMenu bar

Session activity states

Each session card projects one of three activity states:

OptionWhat it does
workingAgent is actively running. Shown with working indicators in sidebar, floating overlay, and menu bar.
idleSession is open but not currently working or waiting for input.
attentionAgent needs your input. Triggers attention styling and optional macOS notifications.

Agent hooks installed from first-launch or Settings → Integrations feed these states for supported CLIs (Claude, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, Gemini, Copilot, and others).

Completion sounds

OptionWhat it does
completionBellEnabledMaster toggle for completion sounds. Enabled by default.
completionSoundSound played when agent work completes. Default: arcade. Options include ping, glass, shamisen, success-chime, flawless-victory, and more.
actionCompletionSoundSound for action-completion feedback (sidebar command buttons). Default: shamisen.

Settings → Sounds lets you preview sounds and test the completion flow. Changing the completion sound in Settings plays a preview immediately.

macOS attention notifications

OptionWhat it does
showMacOSAttentionNotificationsShow macOS banners when a background session transitions to Needs Attention. Enabled by default on new installs.

When enabled, Ghostex requests macOS notification permission on first use. Settings provides a test action for the current completion alert flow and a shortcut to open macOS Notification Settings.

Attention notifications are rate-limited per session and globally to avoid spamming when many sessions change state at once.

Floating and menu bar indicators

OptionWhat it does
hideFloatingSessionStatusIndicatorsHide the AppKit floating session status overlay. Visible under Recommended and Detailed presets.
hideMenuBarSessionStatusIndicatorsHide working/done counters in the macOS menu bar. Separate toggle from floating overlay.
sessionStatusIndicatorSizeFloating indicator size: medium (default), or other named sizes from Settings.

Sidebar presets control default visibility: Recommended and Detailed show both surfaces; Codex and Minimal hide them for a quieter desktop.

First-launch defaults

  • showMacOSAttentionNotifications: true
  • completionBellEnabled: true
  • completionSound: arcade
  • Agent hooks: required for automatic In Progress / Needs Attention detection and first-prompt titles.

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