# Prompt notifications A turn stops while a prompt waits on the human. If you switched to another window, the wait is invisible until you come back — so the CLI announces it. A prompt is announced only after `grace_seconds` of waiting (5s by default), so answering at the terminal stays silent. Bursts are throttled by `min_interval_seconds`, and the announcement says what is being asked, not what it would run: the one-line reason can name a command, argv or URL, and a notification outlives the prompt (and may be mirrored to a lock screen), so it travels only with `include_reason = true`. ## Configuration ```toml [notify] enabled = true grace_seconds = 5.0 min_interval_seconds = 10.0 channels = ["auto"] # auto | desktop | terminal actions = true # offer the answer, not just the news include_reason = false protocol = "" # terminal protocol override: osc777 / osc9 / bell ``` `channels = ["auto"]` tries the desktop first and falls back to the terminal; `["desktop"]` and `["terminal"]` pin one of them. Notifications are only sent from an interactive run — a one-shot `plyngent "…"` never waits on a human, and a prompt answered inside the grace period is never announced at all. ## What is answered where | Prompt | Notification offers | |---|---| | tool confirm (single) | Allow once / Deny / Go to terminal | | a round's batch of confirms | Allow all / Review one by one / Deny / Go to terminal | | command denylist, `fetch_local` private host | Allow once / Deny / Go to terminal | | directory-access request | same three (the level asked for, not a lower one) | | skill write | Allow once / This chat / Deny / Go to terminal | | limit-continue | Continue / Continue, stop asking / Stop here / Go to terminal | | `ask_user_line` | a reply field — the answer *is* the text you type | | `ask_user_choice`, `ask_user_form`, PTY secrets | nothing (terminal only) | Each prompt says which answers it accepts (`prompt_wait(..., choices=…)`), and those are the buttons; one that names none gets Allow once / Deny / Go to terminal. "Go to terminal" is always the last button: it withdraws the notification and leaves the prompt waiting. An answer read from the notification is treated exactly like a typed one — `allow` is the `y` the prompt accepts, `deny` is `n` — and it never records a session grant: the button means "this once", which is why a prompt with an extra answer (this chat, stop asking) offers it as a button of its own. A secret is never asked for in a notification, and never echoed into one. A prompt that can be answered from the notification reads both surfaces while it blocks, from the first moment — the notification itself only shows up after `grace_seconds`, so waiting for it to appear before listening would block on the terminal alone. Typing at the terminal always wins; a readline-only convenience (Tab completion on `ask_user_line`) is what a question gives up in exchange. A prompt that *follows* an answer given on the notification — the "why denied" comment, the per-call prompts after "Review one by one" — is announced at once, with no grace period and past the burst throttle: the human is looking at the notification, and the follow-up is the next thing they must answer. ## Desktop channel The desktop channel needs the optional extra: ```console pip install 'plyngent[notify]' ``` It wraps `desktop-notifier`, which talks to `org.freedesktop.Notifications` on Linux, Notification Center on macOS and WinRT on Windows. Buttons need a notification server that renders them (KDE Plasma and GNOME Shell do; a bare `dunst` may not, and then the notification is text-only without any error). The reply field is KDE-only in practice: it is the `inline-reply` capability plus the `x-kde-reply-submit-button-text` hint, which only KNotifications implements. Notifications are shown from the library's async API on a loop that runs in a daemon thread, because callbacks only fire while the loop that owns the notification is running. The notification stays on screen: it is sent with no expiry (`timeout = 0`, the freedesktop value for "until dismissed"), so the server does not slide it into the tray a few seconds later. That is the point of it — the turn is blocked until the prompt is answered, and a collapsed notification is one the human would find only on coming back anyway. Urgency stays at the library default: on KDE Plasma, `critical` keeps the notification up just the same but paints the popup as urgent, and on every platform it asks the Focus mode to let it through — which a prompt has no business doing. Once the prompt is answered, the notification is dismissed. ## Terminal channel No dependency and no extra: the CLI writes an escape sequence to `/dev/tty` (never stdout, so a redirect cannot swallow it) and the terminal turns it into a native notification. | Protocol | Sequence | Terminals | |---|---|---| | OSC 777 | `ESC ] 777 ; notify ; title ; body` | Ghostty, WezTerm, Warp, Contour, VTE (GNOME Terminal, Tilix, Terminator), rxvt, Windows Terminal | | OSC 9 | `ESC ] 9 ; title: body` | iTerm2, Apple Terminal, ConEmu | | bell | `BEL` | everything else | Detection reads the environment only (`TERM_PROGRAM`, `TERM`, `WT_SESSION`, `VTE_VERSION`), so it never blocks and never touches the input stream; `protocol` pins it. Inside tmux the sequence is wrapped in DCS passthrough — tmux needs `set -g allow-passthrough on` — and inside GNU Screen in a Screen DCS. kitty speaks OSC 99 only, which is not implemented, so it keeps the bell; install the extra to reach it through the desktop instead. ## Failure is always silent A missing extra, a desktop without a notification server, a refused write: each falls through to the next channel and never raises into the prompt. There is no sound, no remote push and no notification when a turn merely ends — only when a prompt is waiting for you.