Notifications (experimental)

Gemini CLI can send system notifications to alert you when a session completes or when it needs your attention, such as when it's waiting for you to approve a tool call.

Note: This is a preview feature currently under active development. Preview features may be available on the Preview channel or may need to be enabled under /settings.

Notifications are particularly useful when running long-running tasks or using Plan Mode, letting you switch to other windows while Gemini CLI works in the background.

Requirements

Currently, system notifications are only supported on macOS.

Terminal support

The CLI uses the OSC 9 terminal escape sequence to trigger system notifications. This is supported by several modern terminal emulators. If your terminal does not support OSC 9 notifications, Gemini CLI falls back to a system alert sound to get your attention.

Enable notifications

Notifications are disabled by default. You can enable them using the /settings command or by updating your settings.json file.

Open the settings dialog by typing /settings in an interactive session.
Navigate to the General category.
Toggle the Enable Notifications setting to On.

Alternatively, add the following to your settings.json:

{
  "general": {
    "enableNotifications": true
  }
}

Types of notifications

Gemini CLI sends notifications for the following events:

Action required: Triggered when the model is waiting for user input or tool approval. This helps you know when the CLI has paused and needs you to intervene.
Session complete: Triggered when a session finishes successfully. This is useful for tracking the completion of automated tasks.

Next steps

Start planning with Plan Mode.
Configure your experience with other settings.

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