A native macOS dialog for Claude Code's AskUserQuestion tool. Instead of answering questions inline in the terminal, a floating SwiftUI panel appears — with radio buttons, checkboxes, free-text input, and full keyboard navigation.

When Claude Code needs your input, it normally shows a terminal widget that requires you to be looking at that specific terminal window. That's fine for interactive sessions — but what about:

• Long-running tasks where Claude hits a decision point 20 minutes in, while you're in a different app
• Scheduled or background sessions (via cron, CI, or scripts) that need human input to proceed
• Multiple concurrent sessions where you want questions to pop up as native notifications you can answer from anywhere

claude-dialog solves this by intercepting questions and showing them as a floating macOS panel that appears above all windows — even full-screen apps. You see it immediately, answer with a click or keyboard, and Claude continues. No need to hunt for the right terminal tab.

Claude Code has a hooks system that lets you intercept tool calls. claude-dialog is a PreToolUse hook that:

1. Receives the AskUserQuestion JSON on stdin
2. Displays a native floating panel with all questions
3. Captures your selections (single-select, multi-select, free-text "Other")
4. Outputs a deny hook response to stdout with your answers embedded

The deny response suppresses the terminal widget entirely — you only see the native dialog. Claude receives your answers via the hook's permissionDecisionReason and proceeds without re-asking.

• Single-select questions with radio buttons
• Multi-select questions with checkboxes
• "Other" option on every question with a free-text field
• Full keyboard navigation: arrow keys to move, space to toggle, Return to confirm, Escape to cancel
• Floating panel that appears above all windows, including full-screen apps
• No dock icon — runs as an accessory process
• Session context — shows the working directory in the header
• Frosted glass background with automatic dark/light mode
• Cancel = fallthrough — if you cancel or close the dialog, the normal terminal prompt appears instead

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Swift 6.0+ toolchain (included with Xcode 16+)
• Claude Code with hooks support

git clone <this-repo>
cd claude-dialog
swift build -c release

The binary lands at .build/release/claude-dialog (~350 KB).

For convenience, you can copy it somewhere on your PATH:

cp .build/release/claude-dialog /usr/local/bin/claude-dialog

Edit ~/.claude/settings.json and add a PreToolUse hook for AskUserQuestion:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "AskUserQuestion",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "/absolute/path/to/claude-dialog",
            "timeout": 120
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Replace /absolute/path/to/claude-dialog with either:

• The build output path: /path/to/claude-dialog/.build/release/claude-dialog
• Or wherever you copied the binary: /usr/local/bin/claude-dialog

Timeout: The timeout value (in seconds) controls how long Claude Code waits for the hook before falling through. Set this high enough that you have time to read and answer — 120 is a safe default. The dialog itself has no countdown; it waits indefinitely for your input.

To scope this to a single project, add the same hook config to .claude/settings.json in the project root instead:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "AskUserQuestion",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "/absolute/path/to/claude-dialog",
            "timeout": 120
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

This file should be committed to the repo if you want the whole team to use it, or added to .gitignore if it's a personal preference.

If you already have PreToolUse hooks, just add the AskUserQuestion matcher entry to the existing array. Matchers are checked in order and the first match wins:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "AskUserQuestion",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "/absolute/path/to/claude-dialog",
            "timeout": 120
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "matcher": "*",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "your-other-hook"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

When the "Other" text field is active, arrow keys exit the field and resume option navigation. All other keys type into the field normally.

If you cancel the dialog (Escape, close button) or the hook times out, claude-dialog exits with code 0 and produces no stdout output. Claude Code treats this as "hook had nothing to say" and falls through to the normal terminal question widget — so you never lose the ability to answer.

stdin (JSON) → decode → NSApp (accessory) → NSPanel + SwiftUI → stdout (JSON) → exit

Input (subset of what Claude Code sends on stdin):

{
  "cwd": "/Users/you/project",
  "tool_name": "AskUserQuestion",
  "tool_input": {
    "questions": [
      {
        "question": "Which database should we use?",
        "header": "Database",
        "multiSelect": false,
        "options": [
          { "label": "PostgreSQL", "description": "Relational, great JSON support" },
          { "label": "SQLite", "description": "Embedded, zero-config" }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Output (written to stdout on confirm):

{
  "hookSpecificOutput": {
    "hookEventName": "PreToolUse",
    "permissionDecision": "deny",
    "permissionDecisionReason": "User answered via native macOS dialog. [Database] Which database should we use? -> PostgreSQL. Do NOT re-ask these questions. Treat this as the user's final answer and proceed accordingly."
  }
}

MIT