cursor-attention-beep

A small, observe-only Cursor hook that plays a macOS system sound whenever the agent might need your attention: end of a turn, a truly elevated shell command (sudo, ssh, scp, sftp, rsync, nc, ncat, telnet, chmod, chown). Edit-gate and MCP coverage are available as one-snippet opt-ins because they tend to fire on almost every agent action, not just real approval prompts.

The shell list is intentionally narrow and was tuned from real multi-agent session data: package managers (npm/pnpm/yarn/pip/uv), git, curl/wget, and diagnostic tools (dig/ping/etc.) are excluded because agents run them constantly and they're typically auto-approved. See ATTENTION_BEEP_PATTERN below if you want them back.

It is intentionally small (one shell script, one JSON file) and never prints a permission decision, so Cursor's normal approval prompts are unchanged. The hook only listens; you still drive the approvals.

Status: alpha. macOS-first. Tested with Cursor's hook system on macOS.

Why this exists

Cursor has hooks but no first-class "agent is waiting for input" event. Claude Code has a Notification event with a permission_prompt matcher and a thriving ecosystem of sound-notification tools; Cursor does not. This repo fills the obvious gap with the smallest useful thing.

How it differs from neighbors:

Tool	IDE focus	Cursor support	Style
PeonPing/peon-ping	Claude Code primary, Cursor adapter	yes (adapter)	voice packs, themes, multi-platform, larger surface
NazarenoL/cursor-but-fun	Cursor	yes	switches apps to a game while you wait
beautyfree/cursor-activate-hook	Cursor	yes	window focus, not sound
fsalmons/claude-chime, EryouHao/claude-code-sound-notification, ChanMeng666/claude-code-audio-hooks	Claude Code	no	mature, Claude-only
cursor-attention-beep	Cursor only	n/a	minimal, single sound, observe-only; turn-end + truly-elevated shell by default, edit- and MCP-gates opt-in

If you want voice packs / multi-IDE support / dashboards, use PeonPing. If you want one short script that pings when it probably matters and stays out of the way otherwise, use this.

Coverage

Cursor has no "approval prompt shown" event, so this hook listens on the events that come closest. The defaults are tuned to "high signal, low chatter" -- everything that ships on by default beeps either once per turn or once per gated/sensitive call. Edit-gate and MCP coverage are opt-ins (see below) because in practice they fire on almost every matched agent action, not just when Cursor pauses for your approval.

Event	Mode	When it beeps	Default
stop	stop	Agent finishes a turn (including when it ends because it can't proceed without your input)	on
beforeShellExecution	shell	About to run a shell command that starts (or starts a sub-command after ;, |, ||, &&) with one of: sudo, ssh, scp, sftp, rsync, nc, ncat, telnet, chmod, chown. Tokens in arguments do not match (e.g. cat ~/.ssh/config stays silent).	on
beforeMCPExecution	mcp	About to call an MCP tool	opt-in -- see below
preToolUse	edit	About to use Write / Edit / MultiEdit / StrReplace / EditNotebook	opt-in -- see below

The hook writes nothing to stdout, so it returns no permission field. Cursor falls back to its native approval flow for every event, every time.

Opt-in: edit-gate coverage

Cursor's preToolUse event fires before every matched tool invocation, whether or not Cursor pauses for your approval. If your workspace has auto-accept on for in-workspace edits (Cursor's common default), enabling edit coverage means the hook beeps on every auto-accepted edit the agent makes. That's a lot of noise for sessions where the agent is editing heavily.

It's still useful in two cases:

• Your workspace requires manual approval for all edits (auto-accept off globally). Then almost every preToolUse is a real "accept changes" prompt and the beep is high signal.
• You routinely watch agents touch paths outside the workspace (e.g. ~/.cursor/, dotfiles, sibling repos) where approval is always required.

To enable, add this entry to ~/.cursor/hooks.json under hooks. Use the absolute path to your installed script (hooks.json does not expand ~ or env vars, and Cursor does not guarantee the cwd it runs hooks from, so a relative path silently fails):

"preToolUse": [
  {
    "command": "/Users/you/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh edit",
    "matcher": "^(Write|Edit|MultiEdit|StrReplace|EditNotebook)$",
    "timeout": 5
  }
]

If you change your mind later, remove the entry or set ATTENTION_BEEP_DISABLE_EDIT=1 in your shell profile.

The edit mode is preserved in hooks/attention-beep.sh exactly so this opt-in works -- no script changes required.

Opt-in: MCP-gate coverage

beforeMCPExecution fires before every MCP tool call the agent makes (browser automation, wiki tools, custom servers, etc.). Most of those run without pausing for your approval, so enabling MCP coverage means a beep on every MCP invocation -- often dozens per turn. That was the default in v0.2--v0.4 and turned out to be mostly noise; v0.5 makes it opt-in, same as edit-gates.

To enable, add this entry to ~/.cursor/hooks.json under hooks (use your absolute installed script path):

"beforeMCPExecution": [
  {
    "command": "/Users/you/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh mcp",
    "timeout": 5
  }
]

Remove the entry or set ATTENTION_BEEP_DISABLE_MCP=1 to turn it off again. The mcp mode stays in the script so this opt-in needs no code changes.

Install

Requirements: macOS, jq, afplay (built in). All present on every modern Mac except jq (brew install jq).

git clone https://github.com/aRealGem/cursor-attention-beep.git
cd cursor-attention-beep
./install.sh

The installer:

1. Copies hooks/attention-beep.sh -> ~/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh (chmod +x).
2. Renders each hook command with the absolute path to that installed script. hooks.json has no ~/env-var expansion and Cursor does not guarantee the cwd it spawns hooks from, so relative paths silently fail in any window whose cwd is not ~/.cursor/ (fixed in v0.3.2).
3. If ~/.cursor/hooks.json already exists, backs it up to hooks.json.<UTC>.bak and merges the two default entries in (idempotent; re-running won't duplicate them; other hooks in your file are preserved; re-running also strips stale attention-beep entries for events we no longer ship by default, e.g. beforeMCPExecution).
4. If it doesn't exist, creates it.

Dry-run first if you want: ./install.sh --dry-run.

Verify in Cursor: Settings -> Hooks should list two entries (stop, beforeShellExecution). End a turn -> Sosumi.

Customize

All knobs are environment variables; set them in your shell profile (e.g. ~/.zshrc).

Variable	Default	Effect
ATTENTION_BEEP_DISABLE	unset	Master kill switch (=1 -> no-op every event)
ATTENTION_BEEP_DISABLE_STOP	unset	Silence turn-end beeps
ATTENTION_BEEP_DISABLE_SHELL	unset	Silence network/elevated-shell beeps
ATTENTION_BEEP_DISABLE_EDIT	unset	Silence file-edit beeps
ATTENTION_BEEP_DISABLE_MCP	unset	Silence MCP-call beeps
ATTENTION_BEEP_SOUND	/System/Library/Sounds/Sosumi.aiff	Any .aiff / .wav / .mp3 path that afplay accepts
ATTENTION_BEEP_PATTERN	see source	Override the shell-match extended regex entirely
ATTENTION_BEEP_NOTIFY	unset	=1 also posts a macOS notification banner alongside the sound (visual fallback for the post-wake audio bug; uses terminal-notifier if installed, else osascript)
ATTENTION_BEEP_LOG	unset	If set to a writable path, appends one line per beep: ISO8601 mode afplay_exit=N. Useful for diagnosing "hook fired but silent" vs "hook never fired"

Available system sounds: Basso, Blow, Bottle, Frog, Funk, Glass, Hero, Morse, Ping, Pop, Purr, Sosumi, Submarine, Tink.

Manual testing

echo '{"command":"ssh host hostname"}' | ~/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh shell  # beep
echo '{"command":"git status"}'        | ~/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh shell  # silent
echo '{"command":"ls -la"}'            | ~/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh shell  # silent
~/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh stop </dev/null                                  # beep
~/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh mcp  </dev/null                                  # beep
~/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.sh edit </dev/null                                  # beep (mode kept for opt-in users)

Troubleshooting: silent after wake from sleep

If the beep stops working after your Mac wakes from sleep (display sleep or full sleep), you're almost certainly hitting a known macOS coreaudiod bug: afplay runs and exits 0, but the audio driver hasn't re-attached the default output, so nothing reaches the speakers. The hook can't detect this from the exit code alone -- it looks like a successful play.

What this repo does about it:

• play() is resilient to failed afplay invocations -- on a non-zero exit it waits briefly and retries, then falls back to osascript -e 'beep 2'. This covers the "audio system briefly not ready" variant.
• For the harder "exit 0 but silent" variant, two opt-in env vars help:
  • ATTENTION_BEEP_NOTIFY=1 -- post a macOS notification banner alongside every beep. Banners use a different subsystem than afplay and tend to survive the post-wake bug. Pair with sound rather than replacing it.
  • ATTENTION_BEEP_LOG=$HOME/.cursor/hooks/attention-beep.log -- log one line per invocation so you can confirm whether the hook fired (and what afplay returned) the next time it goes quiet.

Manual remedy when audio is actually wedged (one of these usually works; the first is least disruptive):

sudo launchctl kickstart -kp system/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod
# or:
sudo launchctl stop  com.apple.audio.coreaudiod && \
sudo launchctl start com.apple.audio.coreaudiod
# or, quick System Settings -> Sound -> Output: switch output device away and back

Inherent limitation: during full system sleep nothing runs (Cursor itself is suspended), so a beep that wakes you while the Mac is asleep is not possible from a Cursor hook. This troubleshooting targets the "display asleep / locked / just-woke" cases where the agent is still running and the only thing broken is the audio output.

Uninstall

./install.sh --uninstall

Removes the script and strips every attention-beep entry from ~/.cursor/hooks.json (backed up with a UTC timestamp). Other hooks in that file are preserved.

Roadmap (no promises)

• Linux / Windows audio backends (paplay, ffplay, PowerShell MediaPlayer).
• Optional distinct sound per event (SOUND_STOP, SOUND_SHELL, SOUND_EDIT, SOUND_MCP).
• An optional terminal-notifier integration for a banner alongside the sound.
• If/when Cursor ships a real notification / permissionRequest event, switch to it and retire the broader event matchers.

If you want any of these, open an issue.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.