CodeIsland

What is CodeIsland?

CodeIsland lives in your MacBook's notch area and shows you what your AI coding agents are doing — in real time. No more switching windows to check if Claude is waiting for approval or if Codex finished its task.

It connects to 14 AI coding tools via Unix socket IPC, displaying session status, tool calls, permission requests, and more — all in a compact, pixel-art styled panel.

Features

• Notch-native UI — Expands from the MacBook notch, collapses when idle

• 14 AI tools supported — Claude Code, Codex, Grok CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Copilot, Trae/Traecli, Qoder, Factory, CodeBuddy, OpenCode, Kimi Code CLI, Cline, Pi / Oh My Pi

• Live status tracking — See active sessions, tool calls, and AI responses in real time

• Permission management — Approve/deny tool permissions directly from the panel

• Question answering — Respond to agent questions without leaving your current app

• Pixel-art mascots — Each AI tool has its own animated character

• One-click jump — Click a session to jump to its terminal tab or IDE window

• Smart suppress — Tab-level terminal detection: only suppresses notifications when you're looking at the specific session tab, not just the terminal app

• Sound effects — Optional 8-bit sound notifications for session events

• Auto hook install — Automatically configures hooks for all detected CLI tools, with auto-repair and version tracking

• iPhone & Apple Watch Buddy — Mirror session status to Dynamic Island, Lock Screen, StandBy, and Apple Watch

• Bilingual UI — English and Chinese, auto-detects system language

• Multi-display — Works with external monitors, auto-detects notch displays

Supported Tools

Tool Events Jump Status

Claude Code 13 Terminal tab Full

Codex 3 Terminal Basic

Grok CLI 14 Terminal Basic

Gemini CLI 6 Terminal Full

Cursor 10 IDE Full

TraeCli 10 Terminal Full

Qoder 10 IDE Full

Copilot 6 Terminal Full

Factory 10 IDE Full

CodeBuddy 10 APP/Terminal Full

Kimi Code CLI 10 Terminal Full

OpenCode All APP/Terminal Full

Cline 5 VSCode Full

Pi / Oh My Pi 8 Terminal Full

Installation

Homebrew (Recommended)

brew tap wxtsky/tap
brew install --cask codeisland

Manual Download

• Go to Releases

• Download CodeIsland.dmg

• Open the DMG and drag CodeIsland.app to your Applications folder

• Launch CodeIsland — it will automatically install hooks for all detected AI tools

Note: On first launch, macOS may show a security warning. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.

iPhone & Apple Watch Buddy

Code Island Buddy is available on the App Store:

Download Code Island Buddy

The iPhone app mirrors your Mac sessions to Dynamic Island, Lock Screen, StandBy, and Apple Watch. The Mac app publishes lightweight session snapshots over your local network while the iPhone app is open, and sends compact Bluetooth summaries for background refreshes such as Live Activities and Watch updates.

Code Island Buddy is completely free and open source. It does not require an account or an external server; the companion source code lives in this repository under ios/CodeIslandCompanion and apple-companion.

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

How It Works

AI Tool (Claude/Codex/Gemini/Cursor/...)
  → Hook event triggered
    → codeisland-bridge (native Swift binary, ~86KB)
      → Unix socket → /tmp/codeisland-<uid>.sock
        → CodeIsland app receives event
          → Updates UI in real time
          → Optional local Buddy sync to iPhone / Apple Watch

CodeIsland installs lightweight hooks into each AI tool's config. When the tool triggers an event (session start, tool call, permission request, etc.), the hook sends a JSON message through a Unix socket. CodeIsland listens on this socket and updates the notch panel instantly.

For OpenCode, a JS plugin connects directly to the socket — no bridge binary needed.

Settings

CodeIsland provides a 7-tab settings panel:

• General — Language, launch at login, display selection

• Behavior — Auto-hide, smart suppress, session cleanup

• Appearance — Panel height, font size, AI reply lines

• Mascots — Preview all pixel-art characters and their animations

• Sound — 8-bit sound effects for session events

• Hooks — View CLI installation status, reinstall or uninstall hooks

• About — Version info and links

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut Action Default

⌘⇧I Toggle the island panel open/closed On

⌘⇧A Approve the current permission request Off

⌘⇧D Deny the current permission request Off

All shortcuts are configurable — and more actions (always-allow, skip question, jump to terminal) can be bound — under Settings → Shortcuts. When an approve/deny shortcut is enabled, its binding shows as a badge right on the approval card.

Requirements

• macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later

• Works best on MacBooks with a notch, but also works on external displays

Acknowledgments

This project was inspired by claude-island by @farouqaldori. Thanks for the original idea of bringing AI agent status into the macOS notch.

Star History

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.