Keep an eye on Claude Code and Codex while you work in other apps

The problem

Agents take minutes, sometimes much longer. In the meantime you're reading docs in a browser, answering Slack or reviewing code in your editor. The Claude and Codex windows are behind everything, so the only way to know whether a chat has stopped to ask "Can I run npm install?" is to switch back and look.

Check too often and you lose focus; check too rarely and an agent sits idle for twenty minutes waiting for a one-word answer.

How Pairbar solves it

1. Turn on alerts per app
   In Settings → Notifications, turn alerts on for Claude, for Codex or both, and choose whether to play a sound. Banners need the Notifications permission, which macOS asks for once.
2. Switch to any other app
   Work in a browser, Slack or your editor. The sidebar stays on the Claude or Codex window behind, covered by whatever covers that window, so it's right there when you click back.
3. Get a banner when a chat finishes or needs you
   When a chat finishes or stops for a permission or a question, and you're not looking at it, a banner shows the app, the chat title and the project. Click it and the chat opens in its app, Claude or Codex.
4. Glance at the menu bar
   Pairbar's menu-bar icon shows how many chats need you, so you can see at a glance whether anything is waiting.
5. Search without switching
   Press ⌃⌥K from any app for a Spotlight-style panel. Empty, it lists what needs you, what's working, what just finished and your latest chats; type to search titles and conversations. Esc returns you to where you were.

Shortcuts

What tells you while you're away

• Notifications when a chat finishes or needs you and you're not looking at it, per app, with an optional sound. What the chat is asking is left out of banners unless you turn it on, since banners show on the lock screen.
• Menu-bar icon with a count of chats that need you.
• ⌃⌥K quick search from any app, with what needs you and what's working listed before you type.

Screen sharing

Pairbar shows up in screenshots (Coming Soon), recordings and shared screens like any app. To keep chat titles and questions out of a meeting, turn on Settings → About & advanced → Hide Pairbar from screenshots (Coming Soon) and screen sharing (off by default): the sidebar and the quick search panel then stay out of them. Some capture (Coming Soon) tools may not honour this. See settings.

Without Pairbar

Common ways to keep watch without Pairbar:

• A second display with the Claude or Codex window always visible.
• Split View or window tiling to keep an agent next to your work, at the cost of half the screen.
• Stage Manager, which keeps recent windows as thumbnails at the side.
• Terminal-based agents in tmux, with a status line or bell when a pane changes.
• The apps' own notifications, where available; they cover one app each and don't summarise several chats.