Claude Code mobile notifications: three ways to know when it’s done

2026-07-17

A long Claude Code run stops from time to time and waits for you: a plan to approve, a question to answer, a diff to review. Until you respond, it stays stopped. Below are three ways to get a notification on your phone when that happens, and what each one lets you do next.

Option 1: DIY with hooks + ntfy

Claude Code exposes hooks that fire on lifecycle events. Point a Stop hook at a push service like ntfy.sh and your phone buzzes when the agent stops:

{
  "hooks": {
    "Stop": [{
      "hooks": [{
        "type": "command",
        "command": "curl -s -d 'Claude Code finished' ntfy.sh/your-topic"
      }]
    }]
  }
}

Pros: free, transparent, works everywhere. Cons: per-machine setup you must maintain, no context in the ping, and acting on it still means finding a terminal and re-attaching by hand.

Option 2: official push notifications

Recent Claude Code releases added push notifications through the official Claude app, paired with Remote Control. If your sessions already run through Anthropic-managed flows, there is nothing to set up. It only covers sessions the Claude app can see, and you respond through the Remote Control interface rather than a terminal on your own machine.

Option 3: ServerCC

ServerCC runs agents on your own server over SSH, optionally inside tmux. When you leave a session with Background Run and the agent goes from working to idle, ServerCC posts a local notification. This covers sessions started in ServerCC, persistent tmux sessions, and host tmux panes you have attached to. Each session notifies at most once per background period, and a workspace can be muted in its settings.

Tapping the notification brings you back to the app. The session is in the Running tab; tap it to reattach, with the terminal output intact. From there you can approve the plan, type an answer, check the git diff, or start another session.

Which one should you use?

• If your sessions run through Anthropic-managed flows, use the official push. There is nothing to set up.
• If you want to set up each piece yourself, hooks + ntfy is free and scriptable.
• If your agents run on your own servers and you want to reply from the phone after the notification, use ServerCC. The notification, the terminal and the git diff are in the same app.

You can also combine them, for example ntfy for CI messages and ServerCC for agent sessions. To add a server, see the Quick Start.