Copilot Notifier

Stop staring at the terminal. Let it yell at you instead.

Audio notifications for GitHub Copilot CLI. Plays sounds when Copilot finishes work, needs your input, or breaks something. Go grab coffee. The robot will call you back.

Features

• 4 themes: Classic (system chimes), Robot ("Task complete, human"), Movie ("Houston, we have a problem"), Hype ("Boom, done")
• Automatic: Sounds play when Copilot asks questions, finishes tasks, wraps up sessions, or hits errors
• Permission alerts: Hear a sound when Copilot is stuck waiting for you to click "Allow"
• Remembers you: Theme choice persists across sessions. Set it once, forget about it.
• Cross-platform: macOS and Linux. Zero dependencies. Uses your system's built-in audio.

Install

npx copilot-notifier

That's it. The extension is copied to ~/.copilot/extensions/copilot-notifier/ and works across all your repos.

Restart Copilot CLI (or run /clear). You should see:

Notifier available. Say 'switch theme' to pick a sound theme.

Other install methods

npm install -g copilot-notifier
copilot-notifier

mkdir -p ~/.copilot/extensions/copilot-notifier
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/godilite/copilot-notifier/main/extension.mjs \
  -o ~/.copilot/extensions/copilot-notifier/extension.mjs

git clone https://github.com/godilite/copilot-notifier.git \
  ~/.copilot/extensions/copilot-notifier

mkdir -p .github/extensions/copilot-notifier
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/godilite/copilot-notifier/main/extension.mjs \
  -o .github/extensions/copilot-notifier/extension.mjs
git add .github/extensions/copilot-notifier

Everyone who clones the repo gets the extension automatically.

Usage

Pick your vibe

Say switch theme or change sounds in any Copilot CLI session.

| Theme | Personality | What you'll hear | |-------|------------|------------------| | classic | Clean, professional | System chimes (Glass, Ping, Hero, Basso) | | robot | Sci-fi overlord | "Human, your input is required" | | movie | Dramatic narrator | "Houston, we have a problem" | | hype | Your biggest fan | "Boom, done" |

TTS themes need say (macOS, built-in) or espeak-ng (Linux, apt install espeak-ng).

What triggers sounds

| Sound | Trigger | |-------|---------| | 🔔 Attention | Copilot asks you something or waits for permission | | ✅ Complete | A task finishes | | 🎬 Session | All work is done | | 💥 Error | Something went wrong |

Under the hood

Two tools, three hooks. That's the whole extension.

Tools the agent calls:

• notifier_play - fires alongside ask_user or at task boundaries (runs silently, no permission prompt)
• switch_sound_theme - switches theme, regenerates TTS audio, saves config

Hooks that run automatically:

• onSessionStart - loads your saved theme from ~/.copilot-notifier/config.json
• onPreToolUse - starts a 3s timer before every tool
• onPostToolUse - cancels the timer. If the timer fires first, Copilot was stuck on a permission dialog, so it plays the attention sound. Sneaky.

TTS themes generate .aiff/.wav files once and cache them at ~/.copilot-notifier/.

Platform support

| Platform | Player | TTS | Works? | |----------|--------|-----|--------| | macOS | afplay | say | ✅ Yes | | Linux | paplay / aplay | espeak-ng | ✅ Yes | | WSL | Linux tools | Linux tools | ✅ Probably | | CI / headless | - | - | 🤷 Silently skipped |

Files on disk

Config lives at ~/.copilot-notifier/:

~/.copilot-notifier/
  config.json        ← your theme choice
  attention.aiff     ← cached TTS audio (generated once)
  complete.aiff
  session.aiff
  error.aiff

Uninstall

npx copilot-notifier uninstall
rm -rf ~/.copilot-notifier

License

MIT