AI Pulse is an ambient macOS light strip designed for AI coding agents. Inspired by the SidePulse.io hardware gadget, this software version provides a slim strip of eight virtual LEDs that floats in the unused space beside the Dock. It serves as a visual indicator to show whether an agent is working, waiting for input, finished, or broken, preventing developers from losing track of parallel sessions.

Unlike traditional apps, AI Pulse is a Dock-adjacent, nonactivating NSPanel that requires no private APIs or screen recording permissions. It operates via a local loopback HTTP event service, listening on 127.0.0.1:7455. This allows the bundled aipulse CLI to communicate agent states—such as those from Claude Code—directly to the UI without compromising privacy.

Currently, the project features a robust integration for Claude Code, using a hook lifecycle to map session events to visual states. The app prioritizes privacy by only displaying status updates; it never decodes prompts, terminal contents, or editor data. It is built using Swift 6 and is designed to be a lightweight, high-performance utility for modern AI-driven development workflows.