Claude Code: Getting Phone Notifications When Tasks Complete

Ever start a long-running Claude Code task and walk away, only to come back later and find it finished ages ago? I solved this by configuring Claude Code to send notifications to my phone when it completes tasks.

The Hook Configuration

In my ~/.dotfiles/claude/settings.json, I have a hook that runs when Claude Code stops:

"hooks": {
  "Stop": [
    {
      "matcher": "",
      "hooks": [
        {
          "type": "command",
          "command": "if [ \"$NOTIFICATIONS\" = \"true\" ]; then woof \"Claude: $(basename $(pwd))\"; else echo \"NOTIFICATIONS=$NOTIFICATIONS (not woofing)\"; fi"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

This hook:

• Checks if the NOTIFICATIONS environment variable is set to true
• If so, calls a script called woof with a message containing the current directory name
• Otherwise, just echoes the current notification status

The woof Script

On my PATH at /Users/craig/.bin/woof, I have this script:

#!/bin/bash

set -Eeuo pipefail

# Check that there is exactly one argument
if [ "$#" -ne 1 ]; then
    echo "Usage: $0 <message>"
    exit 1
fi

MESSAGE="$1"

echo -e "$MESSAGE"

if [ "${SILENT:-false}" != true ]; then
    VOICE=${VOICE:-Serena (Premium)}
    say --voice "${VOICE}" "$MESSAGE" &
fi

curl --silent \
    --output /dev/null \
    --form-string "token=$PUSHOVER_APP_TOKEN" \
    --form-string "user=$PUSHOVER_USER_KEY" \
    --form-string "message=$MESSAGE" \
    https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json

This script does three things:

1. Echoes the message to the terminal
2. Speaks the message using macOS's text-to-speech with an AI voice (Serena Premium by default)
3. Sends a push notification to my phone using Pushover

Pushover for Push Notifications

Pushover is a simple notification service that sends real-time notifications to your Android, iPhone, iPad, and Desktop devices. It has a straightforward API that makes it perfect for this use case - just a simple HTTP POST with your API token, user key, and message.

To use Pushover:

1. Sign up at pushover.net
2. Create an application to get an API token
3. Get your user key from your account settings
4. Set these as environment variables: PUSHOVER_APP_TOKEN and PUSHOVER_USER_KEY

Works Great with --dangerously-skip-permissions

This notification system works particularly well when using claude --dangerously-skip-permissions, which allows Claude Code to work autonomously for extended periods without needing human input. Without this flag, you might miss the notifications because Claude would be waiting for permission to perform various actions.

Yes, It's a WUPHF.com Reference

And yes, woof is absolutely a reference to WUPHF.com from The Office - Ryan Howard's startup that simultaneously sends messages via fax, email, text, tweet, and home phone. While my script doesn't quite reach that level of simultaneous communication, it does echo, speak, and push - which feels appropriately excessive for a completion notification!