Beacon in 22 seconds
Know what every session is up to. Be alerted when one needs you. Navigate back without hunting for it.
The colours
Four states, ordered by how much they want you. Each is the same graphite pilot light, so colour and motion carry the meaning without tiny symbols to decode.
Practical guides
The workflow behind the lights: how to keep parallel agent sessions useful without turning them into another system to manage.
Manage multiple Claude Code sessions
Track working, finished and blocked sessions without adopting a new orchestration method.
CodexManage multiple Codex sessions
Keep background agents under their parent and return to the exact task.
macOS alertsMake agent notifications useful
Distinguish blocked work from completed work and make every alert actionable.
Works where you work
Claude Code and Codex can live in desktop apps, editors, or terminals. Beacon uses the safest return route each host can prove, and refuses to guess when it cannot identify an exact tab.
| Where the session lives | What Beacon does |
|---|---|
| Claude app | Status, project grouping, background-task context, and exact return to the session. |
| Codex app | Status, project grouping, background-task context, and exact return to the thread. No status hook required. |
| Cursor | Return to the exact integrated terminal through Beacon's bundled extension.Installed from Beacon's settings; field-tested with multiple Cursor windows. |
| VS Code | The same bundled extension and exact-terminal route are included.Packaged and covered by tests; still awaiting an independent field check in VS Code itself. |
| Terminal.app & iTerm2 | Return to the owning app and, when macOS Automation access can prove it, the exact tab. |
| Other terminals | Status and return to the owning terminal window.Exact panes depend on what that terminal exposes; Beacon raises nothing rather than choosing a stranger's tab. |
Local by design
Beacon needs local access because the product is a bridge back to local work. The boundary is explicit, inspectable, and switchable.
What it reads
Session records your agents already write, plus process and window facts needed to identify the right host.
What it changes
Only Beacon-owned settings, its Claude Code status hook, and its optional Cursor/VS Code extension. Agent session files are never modified.
What can be shared
Anonymous counts, durations, status changes, clicks, and outcomes tied to a random install id. Settings lists every field and turns sharing off in one switch.
What never leaves the Mac
Prompts, responses, session names, folder names, file paths, window titles, code, and anything else about what you are building.
What it does
You started five things and can only look at one. Beacon keeps the board stable, brings the right work back, and keeps parallel work legible.
The whole board, at a glance
Every session you have running, in one row of lights — across both agents, grouped by the project each one belongs to.
Lights only ever change colour; they never move. The third light is the same piece of work every time you look, so after a day you stop reading the pill and start recognising it. Point at one to see which session it is.
A nudge when you're the one holding it up — and a way back in
When something blocks on you, the screen gives a pulse showing the same lights. A blocked session keeps asking until it is resolved; a completed turn announces itself once. After the first pulse, Beacon quiets repetition while you are actively working in an agent host, and a flash can be snoozed for three to ten minutes.
Then click the light. Beacon raises that terminal window or opens that tab — you land in the session, not in a list of them.
Parallel work without a wall of lights
Delegated agents stay under the session that started them instead of pretending to be unrelated work. A small neutral number shows how many background tasks are live.
Point at the light or open the session list for the agent and command breakdown. The number is context only: the light's colour still tells you what the main session needs.