Nook

简体中文

Nook turns your MacBook notch into a live ambient surface for coding sessions and music playback.

It watches Claude Code and Codex in the background, surfaces the moments that matter, and gives your machine a sense of presence while you work. When your agents are busy, the notch shows motion and status. When a session becomes active again, it brings that change forward. When music is playing, Nook brings the track, artwork, and atmosphere into the same space instead of treating it like a separate app.

At A Glance

The collapsed notch stays quiet most of the time, then lights up with live AI activity or music presence when something meaningful is happening.

The expanded view gives you a session list, rich status context, and music controls without forcing you back into a terminal tab or another app window.

Why Nook

Most AI coding tools still live inside terminal tabs. Most music controls still live somewhere else entirely.

Nook pulls both into one lightweight layer:

• AI session status stays visible without keeping a terminal in focus
• important session changes surface where your eyes already are
• music playback becomes part of the same ambient workspace
• album art can tint the expanded notch background for a more alive desktop feel

The result is less context switching and a notch that feels useful instead of ornamental.

Highlights

• Follows both Claude Code and Codex sessions through local hooks
• Shows compact live processing states directly in the notch
• Expands into a session list and chat detail view
• Makes active sessions and status changes easy to spot
• Blends music playback, artwork, and progress into the same UI layer
• Uses artwork-derived color to make the notch feel more alive

Core Experience

AI Sessions

• Tracks Claude Code sessions through installed hooks
• Tracks Codex sessions through installed hooks
• Shows compact live activity while agents are processing
• Expands into session list and chat detail views
• Plays completion feedback when work is ready for your input

Music Presence

• Displays now playing track, artist, artwork, and playback progress
• Supports transport controls from the expanded notch
• Shows a compact music activity when no higher-priority AI state is active
• Extracts artwork-driven colors for a richer adaptive background

How It Feels

Nook is not trying to become another chat app, another terminal, or a full media player.

It is closer to a status instrument:

• quiet when nothing important is happening
• animated when work is in flight
• direct when a decision is needed
• atmospheric when music is playing

Quick Start

Requirements

• macOS
• Xcode
• Claude Code installed for Claude session monitoring
• Codex installed for Codex session monitoring

Install

1. Open the released Nook.dmg.
2. Drag Nook.app into Applications.
3. Open Nook from Applications.

Because the current build is not signed with a Developer ID certificate, macOS may block the first launch.

If that happens:

1. Try opening Nook once, then dismiss the warning.
2. Go to System Settings -> Privacy & Security.
3. In the Security section, allow Nook to run anyway.
4. Open the app again.

Build

xcodebuild -project Nook.xcodeproj -scheme Nook -configuration Debug build

Run

Launch Nook.app from Xcode or from DerivedData. On startup, Nook will:

• ensure only one app instance is running
• install or refresh Claude hook integration
• install or refresh Codex hook integration
• start the local Unix socket server
• create the notch window UI

Project Layout

• Nook/App: app lifecycle, window setup, screen handling
• Nook/Services/Hooks: Claude/Codex hook installation and socket ingress
• Nook/Services/State: central session state store
• Nook/Services/Session: transcript parsing and monitoring
• Nook/Services/Music: now playing integration, playback control, artwork color extraction
• Nook/UI: notch window, views, and shared UI components
• Nook/Models: session, playback, and tool result models

Local Integration Notes

• Claude hook traffic is bridged through ~/.claude/hooks/nook-state.py
• Codex hook traffic is bridged through ~/.codex/hooks/nook-codex-hook.py
• The local socket path is /tmp/nook.sock

Acknowledgements

Nook was shaped in conversation with ideas from these projects:

• farouqaldori/claude-island
• TheBoredTeam/boring.notch

Thank you to both projects for helping establish the creative direction around notch-native tooling and ambient desktop interactions.