Most days I have four or five coding agents running at once: a couple of Claude Code sessions, a Codex session, sometimes something in the background. And most days I lose time the same way. One of them stops to ask "can I run this command?", its terminal is buried under three other windows, and it sits there waiting while I assume it's still working.
Notifications didn't help much. They tell me something needs me, but I still have to find the right terminal, read the request and type an answer.
So I built Openbar, a free, open-source Mac app that puts every agent session on my machine into the notch.
What it does
When a session needs you, the notch opens into an island with the request in full. You see the whole command or the file diff and pick Allow, Deny or Always. ⌘Y, ⌘N and ⌘T work from any app, so I usually answer without leaving my editor.
If the agent asks a question with options, you pick one (or several, or write your own) in the same place.
You can also type or speak a reply, and it lands in that session's own terminal or editor. Speech recognition runs on the Mac.
You can enlarge a session to read the conversation as it grows, with its tools, tasks, cost and model. Subagents get their own rows, background ones included.
Every session also gets a small pixel Clawd in a random costume. I added that for fun and ended up liking it more than I expected.
Which agents
| Agent | In the list | Approve in the island | Reply from the island |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Codex | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| OpenCode | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Gemini CLI | ✓ | in Gemini CLI | ✓ |
| Copilot CLI | ✓ | in Copilot CLI | ✓ |
| Cursor | ✓ | in Cursor |
cursor-agent only |
Sessions show up whatever terminal they run in, and replies reach Terminal, iTerm2, Ghostty, tmux, WezTerm and kitty.
What changed for me
I stopped checking terminals just in case. If the notch is quiet, nothing needs me. When something does, I read the exact command, decide, and go back to what I was doing.
I also read diffs more carefully now. A diff in a small focused card is much easier to actually read than one scrolling past in a terminal.
The rest of it
Openbar started as a menu bar toolkit, and that part is still there if you want it: a volume mixer, system monitor, clipboard history, window layouts, keep awake, Now Playing and a few more. Each one is a switch in the Features hub, so you only turn on what you use.
There's also a Windows 11 beta with the same sessions island.
Try it
It runs on macOS 14 or later (native Swift), plus the Windows 11 beta. It's free and GPL-3.0.
I'd like to hear what's missing, which agent or terminal you want next, or what breaks on your setup. And if it saves you a few minutes a day, a star on GitHub helps a lot.
Top comments (1)
Showing the whole command or diff before Allow is the important part, a notification that only says "needs permission" trains people to click yes. Does Always remember the exact command or a pattern? A pattern is where an allow for npm test can quietly cover more than intended.