The short answer
Choose AgentNotch to see your agents, Heard to hear them.
AgentNotch is a macOS menu bar app that shows your coding-agent sessions in one place: who is waiting on an approval (with the command and the reason), who has a question, sessions grouped by project, context and plan usage. It is a one-time $9.99 purchase with a 3-day trial, and it reads sessions locally.
Heard is a voice layer. It turns Claude Code and Codex progress, questions, failures and results into one or two spoken sentences, so you know what happened while looking at something else or away from the desk. If you are at the screen and want to glance, AgentNotch fits. If you want to stop looking, Heard fits. They also work fine together.
Side by side
What each one does.
AgentNotch facts from agentnotch.app; its buy page lists $9.99 though some older pages still say $19. Checked October 6, 2026.
| App | How it tells you | Agents | Away from the screen | Reply | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AgentNotchvisual | A board in the menu bar: approvals, questions, sessions by project, plan usage | Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Kimi, OpenCode, Antigravity, Pi and more | You have to look | Go to the session | $9.99 one-time, 3-day trial |
| Heardvoice | Spoken sentences: what changed, what needs you | Narrates Claude Code and Codex; status for Cursor, Copilot CLI, Gemini CLI and others; cloud agents by MCP | Built for it, plus an iPhone companion on Power | Hold right ⌘ and talk (Power) | Free open-source engine; Pro $15/mo, Power $30/mo, 14-day Power trial |
What AgentNotch does well.
AgentNotch gives you a dashboard you do not have to set up inside each tool. It shows approval requests with the command and reason, flags agent questions that block progress, groups sessions by project, and shows per-session context and plan usage across providers. Its list of supported agents and terminals is broad, and monitoring stays on your Mac.
- Glanceable at the screen.
- One-time price, no subscription.
- Plan and context usage at a glance.
- Broad agent coverage for status.
What Heard does differently.
Heard is built for the moments you are not looking: a second monitor, a meeting, the kitchen. It decides what deserves speech, so routine tool calls stay quiet and questions, approvals, failures and results come through, with the project name first when several sessions run. On Power you answer by voice, catch up with “Hey Parrot, catch me up” after time away, and follow along on your iPhone. Cloud agents such as Grok Bot and Devin can report through the same voice.
- Works without looking.
- Summaries, not raw events.
- Voice replies and iPhone on Power.
- Open-source engine you can self-host.
“Payments needs you: it wants to run the migration on staging.”
A badge on a menu bar icon you notice twenty minutes later.
Pick AgentNotch if you live at the screen.
If you are at your desk all day, a board is faster than listening: you see all sessions at once and can scan them in a second. It is also cheaper over time, since it is a one-time purchase, and it covers more agents for status than Heard narrates. AgentNotch’s site does not describe spoken updates, so if you want audio, it is not the tool.
Pick Heard if you want to stop watching.
If the reason you run agents is to do something else meanwhile, a visual board still pulls your eyes back. Heard brings the news to you, tells you what changed rather than only that something did, and lets you reply without switching windows on Power.
Running them together.
They do not conflict. Heard listens to agent hooks and AgentNotch reads sessions locally, so you can glance at the board when you are at the desk and let Heard speak when you are not.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Does AgentNotch speak updates out loud?
AgentNotch’s site describes a visual interface in the menu bar and does not mention spoken updates. For spoken updates from Claude Code and Codex, use a voice layer such as Heard.
How much do Heard and AgentNotch cost?
AgentNotch is a one-time $9.99 purchase with a 3-day trial. Heard’s open-source engine is free; the app is $15 a month for Pro or $30 for Power, and new accounts start with a 14-day Power trial with no card.
Which agents do they support?
AgentNotch lists Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Kimi, OpenCode, Antigravity, Pi and others. Heard narrates Claude Code and Codex, shows status and approvals for Cursor, GitHub Copilot CLI, Gemini CLI and others, and connects cloud agents through one MCP URL.
Can I use Heard and AgentNotch at the same time?
Yes. They get their information in different ways and do not interfere: a board at the desk, a voice away from it.
Ready when your agents are
Hear the work without watching every screen.
Start with the full Heard Power experience for 14 days. No card required. The open source engine remains free.
Download Heard for Mac macOS 14 or later · Claude Code and Codex supported