Pulsar

What it is

A small macOS menu-bar app that gives Claude Code a voice. When a long-running task finishes — a build, a test run, a multi-step edit — Pulsar speaks a short, factual update so you can look away from the terminal and still know the moment it's done. No chime to decode, no glancing back every thirty seconds.

Everything runs on your Mac. Pulsar uses the speech voices already built into macOS, so there's no account to create, no API key to paste, and nothing leaves your machine.

Concise and neutral, on purpose

Pulsar is not a narrator and not a personality. The spoken line is a status update: what finished, and whether it succeeded. Short enough to register without breaking your focus, neutral enough that you stop noticing the voice and just absorb the fact.

It speaks on completion, not on every step — so a busy session doesn't turn into a running commentary. Mute it from the menu bar anytime you need silence.

First-time setup

Pulsar is currently distributed unsigned (an Apple Developer ID is on the way). That means a one-time Terminal step is required before the app will launch — a couple of minutes, then it's set-and-forget.

1. Download. Grab the latest .dmg — one click, straight from GitHub Releases.
2. Drag to Applications. Open the .dmg, drag Pulsar.app into the /Applications shortcut. Eject the .dmg afterwards.
3. Strip the Gatekeeper quarantine.macOS attaches a quarantine flag to anything downloaded from the internet. Until the app is signed with an Apple Developer ID, Gatekeeper refuses to launch it. Open Terminal (Spotlight → "Terminal") and paste this exact line, then hit Return:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Pulsar.app"

   Copy
   One command, one time per install. The terminal returns no output on success.
4. Launch from Applications.Press ⌘+Space, type "Pulsar", hit Return. The icon appears in your menu bar — there's no Dock icon because it's a menu-bar app.
5. Pick a voice. Click the menu-bar icon → Settings → Voice. Choose any installed macOS system voice and set the speaking rate. Test it with the preview button.
6. Connect Claude Code. Follow the in-app prompt to point Pulsar at Claude Code. From then on, every completed task gets a short spoken update.

If something doesn't work

The most common case is no sound — check that a system voice is actually installed and selected, and that Pulsar isn't muted from the menu bar. For Terminal-first checks:

Verify the binary signature

Should report Signature=adhoc and flags=0x2(adhoc). If macOS still blocks the app after the quarantine command, re-download the latest build from Releases.

codesign -dv --verbose=4 "/Applications/Pulsar.app" 2>&1 | grep -E "Signature|flags"

After every auto-update

A new build has a new binary identity, so macOS may re-prompt for Gatekeeper bypass. If the app won't open after an update, run the quarantine command above once more against the new copy in /Applications. This stops happening permanently once we ship signed builds.

Who it's for

• Anyone running Claude Code on long tasks who'd rather not babysit the terminal.
• People who context-switch between windows and miss the moment a job finishes.
• Developers who want an ambient, hands-free signal instead of another notification to dismiss.
• Anyone who wants completion audio that stays local — no account, no API key, no data leaving the Mac.

Forked from speak

Pulsar is an MIT-licensed fork of speak. It keeps the core local-voice approach and adds Orbit's identity, the menu-bar companion UX, and a completion-update pipeline tuned for Claude Code.

FAQ