Claude-Code-Glow adds ambient screen border to signal when Claude needs you
Developer noahkirsch built Claude-Code-Glow, a macOS tool that glows your screen borders soft orange whenever Claude Code is waiting for your input, eliminating the need to constantly check the terminal.
Score breakdown
Integrate Claude-Code-Glow into your macOS Claude Code workflow to eliminate idle waiting and constant terminal-checking — letting you stay deep in another window and only re-engage the moment Claude actually needs you.
- 01Claude-Code-Glow displays a soft orange screen-border glow whenever Claude Code is waiting on user input, clearing immediately when unblocked.
- 02The tool targets four specific Claude Code events: finished turns, permission prompts, `AskUserQuestion`, and MCP elicitation dialogs.
- 03It uses Hammerspoon to draw full-screen transparent canvases with stacked alpha-gradient rectangles at the overlay window level across all Spaces.
Developer noahkirsch released Claude-Code-Glow, a lightweight macOS utility that addresses a common friction point with Claude Code: knowing when the AI agent has finished its turn and needs your attention. Rather than relying on dock bouncing, notifications, or constant terminal monitoring, the tool renders a soft orange glow along the borders of every connected display using Hammerspoon's canvas API — giving developers a passive, peripheral-vision cue they can catch without switching context.
Under the hood, Claude-Code-Glow uses Claude Code's hooks system to fire `open hammerspoon://claudeglowon` and `…glowoff` URLs at precisely the right moments.
Under the hood, Claude-Code-Glow uses Claude Code's hooks system to fire `open hammerspoon://claudeglowon` and `…glowoff` URLs at precisely the right moments. Hammerspoon's URL event handler then toggles the visibility of stacked, alpha-gradient canvases that sit at the overlay window level, ignore clicks, and span all Spaces. The `hooks.json` wiring is deliberately narrowed to events that actually require user action — finished turns, permission prompts, `AskUserQuestion`, and MCP elicitation dialogs — rather than every hook that superficially sounds user-facing.
Installation requires macOS, Hammerspoon (`brew install --cask hammerspoon`), Claude Code, and `jq` (`brew install jq`). Running `./install.sh` copies the `ClaudeGlow.spoon` into `~/.hammerspoon/Spoons/`, appends a loader to `~/.hammerspoon/init.lua`, and merges hook wiring into `~/.claude/settings.json` with a timestamped backup. The installer is idempotent — re-running it safely skips already-applied steps — and an `./uninstall.sh` script cleanly reverses all changes.
Key facts
- 01Claude-Code-Glow displays a soft orange screen-border glow whenever Claude Code is waiting on user input, clearing immediately when unblocked.
- 02The tool targets four specific Claude Code events: finished turns, permission prompts, `AskUserQuestion`, and MCP elicitation dialogs.
- 03It uses Hammerspoon to draw full-screen transparent canvases with stacked alpha-gradient rectangles at the overlay window level across all Spaces.
- 04Claude Code hooks fire `hammerspoon://claudeglowon` and `…glowoff` URLs to toggle the glow on and off.
- 05Requirements are macOS, Hammerspoon, Claude Code, and `jq`; installation is handled by a single `./install.sh` script.
- 06The installer is idempotent and saves a timestamped backup of `~/.claude/settings.json` before modifying it.
- 07The project was published by noahkirsch on GitHub and shared on Hacker News on April 19, 2026.
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