Notifications
How Mel tells you an AI agent finished or needs you: the bell, flash cards and desktop notifications.
How do I know when an AI agent in Mel is finished or needs me? Mel tells you in three places: the notification bell in the titlebar keeps every event, a flash card pops up when the agent is in a tab you aren't looking at, and a desktop notification reaches you when Mel isn't the window in front. You don't have to watch a long run.
What raises a notification
| Event | What it says |
|---|---|
| An agent stops for you: an approval card, or a question it asks you | Needs your approval, or what the agent is asking |
| An agent's turn ends | How it ended: Task completed. when it finished, or the reason when it didn't (a provider outage, a credit refusal, a dropped connection) |
| Claude Code, Codex or another CLI agent in a Mel tab goes quiet for you | <the CLI> is waiting for you |
| Something about Mel itself needs you | A short notice about Mel, not about any one tab |
A turn that ended badly never reads as "completed": the words come from how the turn really ended.
CLI agents. A coding-agent CLI counts as waiting when it printed something, then nothing for 8 seconds, and you haven't looked at that pane since. Mel tells you once per quiet spell and reads no screen text to decide it. See Embedded CLI agents.
The notification bell
The bell in the titlebar shows an unread badge. Click it to open the Notifications shade:
- Each row shows the tab's title, what happened, and when.
- Click a row to go straight to that tab and pane, even one half of a split.
- Mark all as read clears the badge.
The shade keeps the last 50 notifications.
Flash cards
A card pops up when the event happens somewhere you can't see it: in another tab, or in an agent you sent to the background. If you're already looking at that pane, there's no card, but the event still goes to the bell. Click Open conversation on the card to go there.
The card stays up for 6 seconds by default. Change it in Settings ▸ Features ▸ Toast notifications stay visible for (2 to 30 seconds).
Desktop notifications
When Mel isn't the window in front, it also tells your operating system:
- Windows: a notification, and the taskbar button flashes. Click it to open that conversation. When a command or a file edit is waiting for approval, the notification has Allow and Deny buttons. It needs Mel installed with the installer.
- macOS: the Dock icon bounces. Mel doesn't post a notification on a Mac yet.
- Linux: a notification through your desktop's
notify-send, if it's installed. Clicking it doesn't open Mel yet.
Desktop notifications are on by default. Turn them off in Settings ▸ Features ▸ Desktop notifications.
Mel keeps them short and safe to show on a lock screen: at most three in any ten seconds (the bell still keeps every event), each line shortened, and anything that looks like a key or token masked. Steps that can't be undone, credential reads, writes outside the project and connector calls are never offered Allow on a notification; you answer those at your desk.
Steps: get told when a long run finishes
- Start the agent in its own tab (Ctrl+Shift+T, ⌘T on a Mac) and give it the task.
- Switch to other work in another tab or another app.
- When the agent needs you or finishes, a flash card or desktop notification appears.
- Click it to land on the conversation, or open the bell later to catch up.
To see every run in one list instead, open the Runs screen (Ctrl+Shift+M, ⌃⇧M on a Mac).
FAQ
Why didn't I get a desktop notification? Mel only sends one while it isn't the window in front, and only with Desktop notifications on. On a Mac you get a Dock bounce, not a notification. On Linux you need notify-send installed.
Can I approve a command from a notification? On Windows, yes, for a command or a file edit. Anything that can't be undone, reads credentials, writes outside the project or acts in a connected app waits for you in Mel.
Do AI terminal notifications send my code anywhere? No. They're shown by Mel and your operating system on your computer.
Why did a notification say the task didn't finish? Mel reports how the turn really ended. Open the conversation to read the full reason.