CodeIsland

Your AI coding agents, live in the MacBook notch.
See what every agent is doing, approve tool calls and answer its questions — without leaving the window you're in.

Install • Highlights • Supported tools • How it works • Build
English | 简体中文

Why CodeIsland?

Coding agents spend a lot of time either working or waiting on you — and you only find out by switching to their window. CodeIsland turns the notch into a live status bar for all of them: which session is thinking, which one needs an approval, which one just finished. Approve the tool call or answer the question right there, or click once to jump to the exact terminal tab.

It works with 30+ AI coding tools, installs its hooks for you, and keeps everything on your Mac.

Highlights

_{Approve a tool call without leaving your editor…}

_{…or answer the agent's question right in the notch.}

Supported tools

Claude Code	Codex	Gemini CLI	Cursor	Grok CLI	OpenCode
Qoder	Trae	Copilot CLI	Factory Droid	CodeBuddy	Qwen Code
Kimi Code CLI	Cline	Pi / Oh My Pi	Hermes	OpenClaw	Google Antigravity
Kiro CLI	StepFun	WorkBuddy	DeepSeek Harness	AiWork	+ more see below ↓

Also covered: Trae CN, Trae CLI / Trae CLI Next, Qoder CN, QoderWork and Qoder CLI, Cursor CLI, CodeBuddy CN, Claude Desktop (Code tab, and Cowork), ZCode — plus any tool with Claude-style hooks, added as a custom CLI in Settings → Hooks.

Several accounts? Register extra Claude Code, Codex and Grok config directories (e.g. a second CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR) in Settings → Hooks; each gets its own hooks and status, and sessions, transcripts and usage cover all of them.

Knows where it runs: sessions inside tmux, zellij, Herdr or T3 Code get a chip next to the terminal badge, and click-to-jump goes to the right pane or thread.

Approvals & questions can be answered from the island for tools whose hooks wait for a decision — Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Qoder, Qwen Code, Trae CLI Next, ZCode, OpenCode, Pi / Oh My Pi, DeepSeek Harness and others. Tools whose hooks can't carry a decision (Google Antigravity, AiWork) are shown read-only, and approvals stay in their own UI.

Installation

Homebrew (recommended)

brew tap wxtsky/tap
brew install --cask codeisland

Manual download

1. Download CodeIsland.dmg from the latest release
2. Drag CodeIsland.app into Applications
3. Launch it — hooks are installed automatically for every AI tool it detects

The app is signed and notarized, and keeps itself up to date through Sparkle.

iPhone & Apple Watch Buddy

Code Island Buddy — free on the App Store, no account, no server — mirrors your Mac sessions to the Dynamic Island, Lock Screen, StandBy and Apple Watch, and lets you approve or answer from the phone.

1. On the Mac, open Settings → Buddy → iPhone Buddy and turn on Allow iPhone Buddy to discover this Mac.
2. Open the app on the same Wi-Fi to pair; connected devices are listed under the toggle.
3. When macOS asks, allow both Local Network and Bluetooth. Local Network carries full snapshots while the app is open; Bluetooth carries the compact summaries that keep the Live Activity and the Watch fresh once it's in the background.

The companion source lives in this repository under ios/CodeIslandCompanion and apple-companion.

Hardware Buddy (ESP32)

A small ESP32 screen on your desk, driven over Bluetooth: it sleeps when your agents are idle, types while they work, and waves at you when one needs an approval or an answer. Board, parts list, firmware and pairing are in hardware/README.md (in Chinese). The Mac-side switch is in Settings → Buddy.

Setup notes

dsh plugin --profile <profile> add github:cdxiaodong/dsh-island

How it works

AI tool (Claude Code / Codex / Gemini / Cursor / …)
  └─ hook fires ─→ codeisland-bridge (native Swift binary)
                     └─ Unix socket /tmp/codeisland-<uid>.sock
                          └─ CodeIsland updates the notch in real time
                               └─ optional: iPhone / Watch / ESP32 Buddy, push, webhook

CodeIsland installs lightweight hooks into each tool's own config. When the tool fires an event — session start, tool call, permission request, question, stop — the bridge forwards it as JSON over a local Unix socket, and the island updates instantly. For events that wait on you, the answer travels back the same way.

Privacy: events never leave your Mac unless you opt in. The only network requests CodeIsland makes are Sparkle update checks, plus — only if you turn them on — Claude plan-limit lookups (sent to api.anthropic.com with your own Claude Code login), webhook forwarding to the URL you configure, and pushes to the services you set up.

Settings

Keyboard shortcuts

Every shortcut can be rebound in Settings → Shortcuts, where you can also bind always allow, skip question and jump to terminal. Enabled approve/deny bindings appear as badges on the approval card.

Build from source

Requires macOS 14+ and Swift 5.9+.

git clone https://github.com/wxtsky/CodeIsland.git
cd CodeIsland

# Development: debug build + launch (Buddy Bluetooth needs the .app below)
swift build && ./.build/debug/CodeIsland

# Release: universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel)
./build.sh
open .build/release/CodeIsland.app

# Tests
swift test

Requirements

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later
• Best on a MacBook with a notch; external and notch-less displays work too

Acknowledgments

Inspired by claude-island by @farouqaldori — thanks for the original idea of putting AI agent status in the macOS notch. And thanks to everyone who has contributed integrations, fixes and bug reports.

Star history

License

MIT — see LICENSE.