Heads-up

Heads-up

Spoken alerts on your Mac, Linux or Windows PC when Claude Code finishes a task or needs you, so you can step away from the keyboard and still know when to come back.

"Hello from Kosh. I need your review."

Heads-up is a plugin for Claude Code (and Codex): a small local MCP server, a skill that teaches the agent when to speak up, and hooks. The agent calls one tool, notify_user, and your computer plays a short line: one of 20 built-in clips, or Claude's own words in the voice you picked, spoken by a free voice that runs on your computer or by ElevenLabs or Sarvam with your own key. It stays quiet when you're on a call, in Focus or Do Not Disturb, or away from home, and it can also wait until you've left the keyboard.

What it does

• 20 alerts in 7 voices (American, British, Australian and Indian; male and female), 140 built-in clips. No API key needed for these.
• Works without a key: out of the box it plays the built-in clips ("Hello. I need your review."). Project names and Claude's own words are opt-in features that switch on once you download the local voice or add your own ElevenLabs or Sarvam key.
• Local voice (free, optional): a voice model that speaks on your computer with no key and no account, in two sizes you can hear before downloading. 12 voices (American, British and Indian English), no daily limit. See Local voice.
• Project names (local voice or your key): "Hello from Brand Bakery Hub." Each project's name is recorded once, then cached.
• Which chat needs you: with several sessions open, the line opens with the chat's title as the Claude app shows it (or your /rename title in Claude Code): "Hello from Kosh. Thread: Fix Safari export button. I need your review." Always with the local voice; with a paid voice only on lines Claude writes itself.
• Claude's own words (local voice or your key): when a fixed line doesn't say enough, Claude adds a short message ("The migration ran, but two tables need your review.") and it's spoken live. Lines are cleaned (no code or links), capped in length and cached. With a key they also count against a daily character budget. If it can't be recorded, the regular alert plays.
• Any voice from your provider (your key): add voices from your ElevenLabs account or any of Sarvam's 37 speakers on the settings page. Alerts in that voice are recorded the first time each plays, or all at once.
• Your own wording (local voice or your key): change what any alert says on the settings page; only that line is recorded.
• Cost you can see: characters used today and this month per provider, plus your ElevenLabs plan's credit counter.
• Automatic alerts via Claude Code hooks: permission prompts, and turns that run longer than 2 minutes, even if Claude forgets to call the tool. Background sessions (claude -p, SDK workers) never trigger them.
• Polite by default
• Away detection (off by default): silent if you used the keyboard or mouse in the last 60 seconds. It's off because with several sessions open you're usually typing in another one when this one needs you; switch it on in settings.
• Calls and Focus: silent while a microphone or camera is in use, or while a macOS Focus or your desktop's Do Not Disturb is on. If the mic or camera comes on while an alert is speaking (dictation, a call), it stops at once.
• Stop: headsup stop, or the Stop button on the settings page, ends the alert mid-sentence (and drops any waiting behind it). Bind headsup stop to a key with a macOS Shortcut (or your desktop's keyboard shortcuts) if you want one keypress.
• Locations: optionally only play on saved networks (Home, office), recognised by the router's hardware address. No GPS.
• Quiet hours, a gap between alerts, and an hourly limit.
• Ear-safe volume: if your computer is muted or quiet, an alert briefly turns it up, then restores it. AirPods and headphones never go above 50%; speakers never above 90%. When Heads-up can't tell what's playing the sound, it uses the headphone limit.
• Settings page at http://127.0.0.1:4777 (headsup), local only.

Requirements

• Node.js 20+ and Claude Code (or Codex), on macOS, Linux or Windows 10/11
• ffmpeg for anything recorded, with the local voice or your key (brew install ffmpeg, sudo apt install ffmpeg, winget install Gyan.FFmpeg)
• Optional: the local voice (about 420 MB of disk, or 210 MB for the smaller model), or an ElevenLabs and/or Sarvam API key, only for recording new lines

Platforms

headsup install checks all of this and says what's missing. On Linux it prints the install line for your distribution (apt, dnf, pacman, zypper); no helper needs building. On Windows it builds the small helper with the C# compiler that ships with Windows (.NET Framework 4), so nothing extra is downloaded. Anything Heads-up can't see is reported on the settings page and by headsup status, never treated as "not on a call".

Linux and Windows support is new in 1.7.0. Linux has been tested on PipeWire with GNOME's Do Not Disturb; other desktops are best effort. Windows is early: it hasn't run on a real PC yet, so if something doesn't work there, please open an issue. Over SSH, in a container or on a machine with no sound server, alerts are skipped with a reason instead of playing into nothing.

Install

In Claude Code, one step:

/plugin install heads-up --marketplace abhishek207/headsup-mcp

Or from a terminal, which also builds the helper your system needs and adds the headsup command:

npx headsup-mcp install      # add --dry-run to see the changes first

From a checkout, npm run setup does the same with the local copy. It's safe to run again after an update. It:

1. checks Node and ffmpeg, and on Linux the sound, call and keyring tools,
2. builds the helper into the data folder: the call detector on macOS (needs swiftc), the Windows helper on Windows; Linux needs none,
3. adds the heads-up marketplace and installs the plugin in Claude Code, and allows its notify_user tool in ~/.claude/settings.json (backup in settings.json.heads-up-backup). Without the allow rule the first alert in each session waits on a permission prompt, which defeats the point when you're away,
4. removes the pre-plugin setup if it finds it (MCP entry, hooks, CLAUDE.md section), so alerts don't double,
5. installs the plugin in Codex too if Codex is installed; trust its hooks there with /hooks (Codex asks again after every Heads-up update: until you do, codex exec reports the hooks as Failed),
6. writes the headsup command to ~/.local/bin (%USERPROFILE%\.local\bin\headsup.cmd on Windows, the same folder Claude Code's own installer uses).

headsup uninstall takes it all out again and keeps your settings.

What the plugin contains

Check the manifests with npm run validate.

Other MCP clients

Any MCP client can run the server on its own over stdio:

npx -y headsup-mcp serve

That gives the client the notify_user tool. The skill and hooks only come with the Claude Code plugin, and npx headsup-mcp install builds the helper.

Use

headsup              # open the settings page

headsup status # what would happen right now headsup test review # play an alert now headsup stop # stop the alert that's speaking headsup mute 30 # mute for 30 minutes; headsup unmute headsup off # master switch; headsup on headsup say "The build is green." # hear a line of your own (local voice or your key) headsup usage # characters sent to your voice providers headsup local install # download the free local voice (full, or: headsup local install small); headsup local remove

Instructions for agents

The settings page has a box where you tell agents when to alert you and what to say, for example "Start with what you need from me, then name the task" or "Don't alert me for tasks that took under 5 minutes". Heads-up keeps the text in its own config and hands it to every agent when a session starts, in the MCP server's instructions and the notify_user tool description. Nothing is written into your CLAUDE.md or skill files, so plugin updates never wipe it. Sessions already open pick up a change after a restart. Your switches, quiet times and volume caps still decide what plays.

Local voice

A free voice that runs on your computer, for people who want project names and Claude's own words without paying for a key. It's off until you download it. On the settings page, under Local voice, play the sample of each model and of each of the 12 voices, download the one you like, then pick one of its 12 voices under Voice, "On this Mac" ("On this computer" on Linux, "On this PC" on Windows). It runs on macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Linux (x64 and arm64) and Windows (x64; not yet tried on a real PC). From a terminal: headsup local install (full quality) or headsup local install small.

• What it is: Kokoro, an 82-million-parameter text-to-speech model, run by sherpa-onnx. The smaller model is the same one stored in 8-bit numbers, which is where its rougher sound comes from. Heads-up downloads them from their official releases, checks each file against a pinned checksum, and keeps them in the data folder. Nothing is installed anywhere else.
• One at a time: switching downloads the other model (the engine is kept) and replaces the current one, which keeps working until the new one is ready. Lines already recorded in a local voice are made again with the new model.
• What it costs: nothing per line. There's no daily budget and no limit on new project names. It uses your CPU and memory for a few seconds each time it records a new line, then frees them; after the download the settings page shows what that took on your computer. Nothing stays loaded between alerts, and lines already made are cached and play instantly.
• Speed and length: under Local voice, Speaking speed sets how fast it talks (0.7× to 1.5×), and Longest line sets how much Claude can say in one alert (1,000 characters by default, up to 2,000). It's free, so Claude is told to say everything it needs: what happened, which review, decision or input, and the options. A long line starts playing once its first sentence