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Make your iTerm2 tab pulse when Claude Code is waiting on you

1 starsShell

Make your terminal pulse orange when Claude Code needs input

by rstureborg·Jul 3, 2026·3 points·0 comments

Post Description

It's not always obvious if Claude Code finished because it's done or needs an answer to a question.. Now the tab color will tell you.

pulsing orange – blocked on you (question or permission prompt) solid green – finished the turn ⬜ no tint – working

Not obvious to me when I started:

- Telling a BLOCKING turn ("Which file?") from a CLOSING one ("Anything else?") isn't a regex job (if '?' in answer return BLOCKING). I used a mixed method, with Haiku and rules to optimize for both speed and accuracy.

- The pulsing works even if Claude doesn't use a AskUserQuestion prompt.

- Using this made the recent very annoying 60 second timeout (https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/73125) for such prompts less disruptive. I simply run `claude --disallowed-tools AskUserQuestion` and still get prompted by my tab color.

macOS + iTerm2 + Claude Code only. MIT. https://github.com/rickardstureborg/claude-needs-input

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