Approve Claude Code From the Notch: Apps Compared

Short answer: Yes. Claude Code’s hooks pass each permission prompt to an app, which shows it in the notch with Allow and Deny and sends your answer back. Free options include coucou, CodeIsland, Open Vibe Island, Vibe Notch, Claude Pulse and Notchy. Vibe Island, NotchPilot and FavTray (part of FavTray Pro) are paid, and Crest pairs a free tier with a paid Pro. Anthropic’s own Remote Control can push the same prompts to your phone instead.

TL;DR

• How it works: a Claude Code hook hands each prompt to the app, usually over a local socket, and your answer goes straight back to Claude Code.
• Free: coucou (it approves Codex too), CodeIsland, Open Vibe Island, Vibe Notch, Claude Pulse, Notchy, and MioIsland for personal use.
• Paid: NotchPilot (€4.99 once), Vibe Island ($19.99 once), Pushary Isle ($9.99 a month) and FavTray (FavTray Pro); Crest has a free tier and a paid Pro.
• Check first: what happens when you don’t answer, whether you can read the full command, and whether the app collects telemetry.
• On your phone: Anthropic’s Remote Control pushes the same prompts to the Claude app.

Checked 7 October 2026 against each app’s website, GitHub repository or store listing, an August 2026 review of Vibe Island, and the Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI docs. FavTray is our app; the others are listed by price.

How does approving Claude Code from the notch work?

It works through the hook system that Claude Code documents:

1. The app adds a hook to your Claude Code settings, usually ~/.claude/settings.json. FavTray uses PermissionRequest, which fires “when a tool call needs a permission decision”; Crest uses PreToolUse, which fires before a tool call executes.
2. Claude Code runs the hook when it wants to run a shell command, edit a file or call an MCP tool. A small script passes the request to the app, usually over a local unix socket.
3. The notch expands with the tool name and what it wants to do. You tap Allow or Deny.
4. The hook returns your decision (allow or deny) to Claude Code, which carries on.

Nothing needs to leave your Mac for this, because the hook, the socket and the app all run locally.

Codex works the same way now: Codex CLI documents a PermissionRequest hook that can allow or deny a request, and coucou and Crest already approve Codex from the notch. Gemini CLI is different: its hooks can block a tool call but can’t grant one.

What should you check before trusting one?

An app that can say “yes” on your behalf deserves a minute of checking:

• What happens when you don’t answer? The safe behaviour is to hand the question back to Claude Code’s own terminal prompt. An app should never approve by itself on a timeout.
• Can you see the full request? A command like git push --force or rm -rf should be readable in full before you tap, not truncated.
• Does it merge into your settings, and undo cleanly? It should add its hook without overwriting your other hooks, and remove only its own entries when you turn it off.
• Is it local? Look for a local socket and no account, analytics or cloud relay, and read its privacy note: coucou, Vibe Island and Open Vibe Island say they collect no telemetry, while Vibe Notch’s README says it collects anonymous usage data with Mixpanel.
• Remember your own shortcuts. “Always allow” rules and bypass modes approve without asking, in any app and in Claude Code itself. FavTray’s Always Allow and Bypass last only for that session.

Which notch apps can approve Claude Code?

App	Price	Approves from the notch	Answers questions	Also	Open source
FavTray (Agent Sessions)	FavTray Pro (pricing), 7-day free trial	Claude Code	Yes: options, multi-select, your own text	Watches Codex sessions; finished and waiting cards	No
coucou	Free	Claude Code (Allow, Deny, Always), Codex (Allow, Deny)	Yes: single or multi-select, up to 4 questions, or reply in the terminal	iPhone app (TestFlight beta); Windows and Linux builds	Yes (MIT)
CodeIsland	Free	Claude Code and others (30+ agents, per its description)	Replies, per its description	Live status; jumps to your terminal; phone app	Yes (MIT)
Open Vibe Island	Free	AI coding agents (which ones: not stated)	Not stated	Monitors sessions; jumps back to the terminal	Yes (GPL-3.0)
Vibe Notch	Free	Claude Code	Not stated	Anonymous usage data via Mixpanel, per its README; macOS 15.6+	Yes (Apache-2.0)
Claude Pulse	Free	Claude Code	Not stated	Keyboard and batch approvals; notched MacBook, macOS 15, Apple silicon	Not stated
Notchy	Free (donations)	Claude Code	Not stated	Codex activity, AI usage limits, listening ports, GitHub PRs	Not stated
MioIsland	Free for personal use	Claude Code	Not stated	iPhone companion app	Source available (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Crest	Free tier; Pro $24.99 once, $2.99/month or $14.99/year; 7-day trial	Claude Code, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI	Free tier lists “coding agent answers”	Shows the whole command first; macOS 14+	Not stated
NotchPilot	€4.99 once, 7-day trial	Claude Code (Codex and Cursor announced)	Not stated	Nine terminals; menu bar pill on Macs without a notch	Not stated
Vibe Island	$19.99 once (1 Mac, 1 year of updates), 2-day trial	Claude Code, OpenCode, MiMoCode (per an August 2026 review)	Yes: options, and plan approval	Lists 30 agents (the rest watch-only, per the review); jumps to the exact terminal pane	Not stated
Pushary Isle	$9.99/month, account required	Lists Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and others	Not stated	Approve from your phone; ⌘Y approves, ⌘N denies	Not stated

1. FavTray: approvals inside a notch island you already use

Disclosure: this is our app. FavTray’s Agent Sessions lives in FavShelf, its island for the Mac notch.

• Approve or deny from the notch: a card drops from the notch with Approve and Deny, and ✕ hands the request back to the terminal. The island’s Agents page adds Allow Once, Always Allow and Bypass.
• Answer its questions: the card shows Claude’s question and its options. Answer opens the Agents page, where you pick one option or several, or type your own (⌘1–⌘9 pick options), then Send. If you don’t answer within 30 seconds, the question goes back to the terminal.
• It never decides for you: if you don’t answer within 55 seconds, the request goes back to Claude Code’s normal terminal prompt. It never auto-allows or auto-denies on a timeout. If two requests from the same session arrive at once, the first one is shown and the other falls back to the terminal.
• Your own shortcuts: Always Allow (that exact call) and Bypass (every request in the session) approve without asking. Both last only for that session, are held in memory, and can be revoked.
• Finished and waiting: “Claude Code finished — <project>” with Claude’s last message, and “Claude Code is waiting for you” when it sits idle; Show me opens that session.
• Setup: opt in from Settings → Claude Code. It adds its hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json next to yours, saves a backup each time it installs, and removes only its own entries when you turn it off. Answers travel over a local unix socket that only your user account can use, with no account and no telemetry.
• The Agents page shows every Claude Code and Codex session with repo, branch, status and elapsed time. You can read a session’s transcript, and send it a message if it was started by Agent Orchestrator (ao).
• No jump to the terminal: clicking a session opens it in the island so you answer in place. If you want a jump to the exact terminal tab, Vibe Island, CodeIsland and Open Vibe Island do that.
• Beyond the notch: the developer cockpit in the menu bar puts waiting approvals at the top of its “Needs you now” list, next to AI limits and red CI.

See it in the 26-second notch approvals video.

Catch: approvals are Claude Code only: Codex sessions are watched, not approved, and Gemini and Cursor agents aren’t monitored. Part of FavTray Pro (pricing); every install gets Pro free for 7 days, and approvals are never counted or capped. The island’s glance stays free; the agent sounds don’t, because they play on approval events.

2. coucou: free and open source, with an iPhone app

coucou is free under the MIT licence; its repository was created on 27 September 2026. Claude Code requests get Allow, Deny and Always, and Codex requests get Allow and Deny. When Claude asks a question (AskUserQuestion), the notch shows the choices as single or multi-select, up to four questions at a time, or you pick “Reply in terminal”. Its README says “no telemetry, no account”, and AlphaSignal wrote it up.

• Strengths: approves Codex as well as Claude Code; an iPhone app in TestFlight beta adds Live Activities, Face ID on every Allow and notifications you can act on; there are Windows and Linux builds too.
• Catch: it’s new (the repository dates from 27 September 2026) and the iPhone app is a beta. Get it from Louis-CFM/coucou, the repository linked here.

3. Crest: a free tier, and three agent CLIs

Crest approves Claude Code, OpenAI Codex CLI and GitHub Copilot CLI from the notch, showing the whole command before you decide. Its free tier’s wording includes “coding agent answers”. Pro is $24.99 once, which includes its Take and Minutes apps for 2 Macs with updates through Crest 7, or $2.99 a month or $14.99 a year, with a 7-day trial. It needs macOS 14 or later.

• Strengths: three agent CLIs in one notch, the full command in view before you answer, and a free tier to start on.
• Catch: Pro is a bundle or a subscription, so check which agent features your tier includes before you buy.

4. NotchPilot: focused on Claude Code sessions

NotchPilot costs €4.99 once, with a 7-day trial and no card (checked 26 September 2026). It registers three hooks in ~/.claude/settings.json (a notchpilot uninstall command removes them) and talks to Claude Code over a local unix socket, with no analytics.

• Strengths: focused on approving and juggling Claude Code sessions, works with nine terminals including iTerm, Ghostty, Warp, VS Code and Cursor, and becomes a menu bar pill on Macs without a notch.
• Catch: Claude Code only for now; Codex and Cursor are announced.

5. Vibe Island: plan approvals and a jump to the exact terminal

Vibe Island configures Claude Code on first launch, then expands the notch with Allow and Deny for file edits, shell commands and MCP calls. It shows Claude Code’s questions with options to pick, and the full plan (ExitPlanMode) to approve or send feedback on. It jumps to the exact terminal tab and split pane in iTerm2, Ghostty, Warp, Terminal.app, WezTerm, Kitty, Zellij, VS Code, Cursor and more, shows usage for Claude, Codex, Kimi, GLM and DeepSeek, plays 8-bit sounds, and says “no cloud, no accounts, no telemetry”.

• Strengths: plan approval on top of permissions and questions, and a jump straight to the right terminal pane.
• Catch: $19.99 once for one Mac with a year of updates (it keeps working after that), and only a 2-day trial, with no card needed. Its site lists 30 coding agents, but an August 2026 review found two-way approvals and answers only for Claude Code, OpenCode and MiMoCode; Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor and the others are watch-only.

Side by side: FavTray vs Vibe Island.

Free and open-source options

• CodeIsland (free, MIT): its description promises live status, approvals and replies for 30+ AI coding agents. It jumps back to your terminal and has a phone app.
• Open Vibe Island (free, GPL-3.0) calls itself a “native macOS control center for AI coding agents — monitor sessions, approve actions, and jump back instantly”, and says it collects no telemetry.
• Vibe Notch (free, Apache-2.0), formerly Claude Island, installs hooks into ~/.claude/hooks/ on first launch and expands the notch with approve and deny buttons when Claude needs permission. Its README says it collects anonymous usage data with Mixpanel. It needs macOS 15.6 or later, and its last release was in April 2026 (checked 26 September).
• Claude Pulse (free, no account): Enter approves, Esc dismisses and Shift+Enter approves a batch, although commands like rm -rf, DROP TABLE and force-pushes always need a separate confirmation. It needs a MacBook with a notch, macOS 15 and Apple silicon (checked 26 September).
• MioIsland (free for personal use, CC BY-NC 4.0): Claude Code approvals, with an iPhone companion app.
• Notchy (free, donation-supported): a general notch app with Claude Code Allow and Deny, Codex activity through hooks, AI usage limits, listening ports and GitHub PRs. Side by side: FavTray vs Notchy.

Can you approve Claude Code from your phone instead?

Yes. Anthropic’s Remote Control isn’t a notch app; it sends Claude Code’s prompts to the Claude app on your phone:

1. Start it with /remote-control in a session, or run claude --remote-control.
2. In /config, turn on Push when actions required (permission prompts and questions), Push when Claude decides, or both.
3. Answer from the Claude app on iOS or Android.

It needs a Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise plan and doesn’t work with API keys. Pushes are skipped while you’re typing in, or focused on, the connected terminal.

Some of the apps above have phone apps too: coucou (an iPhone app in TestFlight beta), CodeIsland, MioIsland and Pushary Isle. Pushary Isle is $9.99 a month and needs an account; it lists Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and others, and ⌘Y approves and ⌘N denies. FavTray has no phone app.

Also worth a look: AgentBar (free, MIT) answers Claude Code prompts from the menu bar or an island-style panel, with Allow, Always and Deny, and can deny with a note. Notchi (free, GPL-3.0) is a notch companion that reacts to Claude Code and Codex activity rather than an approval tool.

Do you need a notch app at all?

Not always. Claude Code has its own ways to cut down on prompts:

• /permissions manages allow, ask and deny rules, so safe commands (running tests, git status) stop asking and risky ones always do.
• /hooks shows which hooks are installed, which is also how you check what a notch app added.
• Your terminal may already tell you: Ghostty, Kitty and iTerm2 show a desktop notification by default when Claude Code needs you (terminal setup docs).
• A Notification hook can tell you Claude is waiting in any terminal, without approving anything for you.

Every way to get notified, step by step: Claude Code notifications on Mac.

A notch app earns its place when you run long sessions in the background, or several at once, and don’t want to keep switching back to a terminal to type “y”. Fewer interruptions also means fewer wasted tokens on stalled sessions; see our guide to reducing Claude Code token usage.

For notch apps in general (media, calendar, file shelf), see our comparison of notch apps for Mac, and our guide on how to get a notch island on Mac.

Sources (checked 7 October 2026; NotchPilot, Vibe Notch, Claude Pulse and AgentBar on 26 September 2026): Claude Code hooks, Claude Code commands, Remote Control, Claude Code terminal setup, Codex hooks, Gemini CLI hooks reference, coucou and AlphaSignal’s write-up, CodeIsland, Open Vibe Island, Vibe Island and its Claude Code page, the August 2026 Vibe Island review, Crest, Notchy, NotchPilot, Vibe Notch, Claude Pulse, Pushary Isle, MioIsland, AgentBar, Notchi, and the FavTray changelog.