Navi

A Windows desktop overlay that shows Claude Code notifications in a Dynamic-Island-style pill at the top of your screen. Single self-contained navi.exe — no Node runtime, no installer, no background services beyond the app itself.

Features

• Floating pill at the top-center of your primary monitor: always-on-top, transparent, click-through (won't block the window beneath it).
• Task complete, permission needed, and idle prompt notifications mapped from Claude Code hook events, with per-type icons, glow, and sound.
• One-click hook setup — right-click the tray icon and choose Enable Claude Code Hooks. Navi writes the required entries into ~/.claude/settings.json for you. Disable cleanly removes only Navi's entries.
• Zero dependencies at runtime — the same navi.exe serves both the GUI and the hook client (navi.exe --hook).

Install

1. Download or build navi.exe (see Build from source below).
2. Put it anywhere you like (e.g. C:\Tools\Navi\navi.exe).
3. Double-click to run. A tray icon appears; the overlay stays hidden until a notification arrives.

Moving the .exe later? Open the tray menu and toggle Disable → Enable so the path in ~/.claude/settings.json refreshes.

Enable Claude Code hooks

1. Start navi.exe.
2. Right-click the Navi tray icon → Enable Claude Code Hooks.
3. A pill confirms the update. Claude Code will now notify Navi on SessionStart, Notification, and Stop.

To turn it off, right-click the tray icon → Disable Claude Code Hooks. This removes only the Navi-owned entries (those tagged with "source": "navi"); any other hooks you or other plugins configured are left untouched.

What gets written

Enable adds the following (abbreviated) to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "SessionStart": [{ "matcher": "startup", "hooks": [
      { "type": "command",
        "command": "\"C:/path/to/navi.exe\" --hook --ensure-running",
        "async": true, "source": "navi" }
    ]}],
    "Notification":  [{ "matcher": "permission_prompt|idle_prompt", "hooks": [
      { "type": "command",
        "command": "\"C:/path/to/navi.exe\" --hook",
        "async": true, "source": "navi" }
    ]}],
    "Stop":          [{ "hooks": [
      { "type": "command",
        "command": "\"C:/path/to/navi.exe\" --hook",
        "async": true, "source": "navi" }
    ]}]
  }
}

Tray menu

Item	Action
Enable / Disable Claude Code Hooks	Toggles Navi's entries in ~/.claude/settings.json.
Test Notification	Fires a sample "Task Complete" pill.
Quit	Exits the app.

How it works

Claude Code hook
      │ (stdin JSON)
      ▼
navi.exe --hook  ───►  \\.\pipe\Navi  ───►  navi.exe (GUI)  ───►  overlay pill

• The main navi.exe process hosts an async named-pipe server on \\.\pipe\Navi.
• When Claude Code triggers a hook, it launches navi.exe --hook. That short-lived subprocess reads the hook JSON, writes a compact notification payload to the pipe, and exits. If the GUI isn't running, it spawns it and exits.
• Payloads are limited to 10 KB and filtered through an allowlist before being forwarded to the renderer.

Build from source

Prerequisites: Rust stable (rustup), Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools with C++ workload, WebView2 runtime (shipped with Windows 11).

cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2"       # once
cargo tauri build                            # produces src-tauri/target/release/navi.exe

Dev loop:

cargo tauri dev

Repository layout

navi/
├── src-tauri/           # Rust backend (Tauri) — GUI + pipe server + hook client
│   └── src/main.rs
└── src/renderer/        # HTML/CSS/JS overlay
    ├── island.html
    ├── island.css
    ├── island.js
    └── sounds/

Troubleshooting

Tray icon missing after double-clicking navi.exe

1. Expand the hidden-icons area (^ arrow) on the taskbar — Windows 11 tucks new apps there by default.
2. Settings → Personalization → Taskbar → Other system tray icons → toggle Navi on.
3. Task Manager → Details: confirm navi.exe is actually running. If it isn't, see the next item.

navi.exe exits immediately or nothing happens on double-click

• Install the WebView2 Runtime (required by Tauri): https://developer.microsoft.com/microsoft-edge/webview2/. Windows 11 ships it; older Windows 10 installs may not.
• Windows SmartScreen may silently block unsigned binaries. Right-click the exe → Properties → Unblock, then re-run. First launch may show "Windows protected your PC" — click More info → Run anyway.
• Don't drop it into Program Files and run without admin — Navi writes to ~/.claude/settings.json when you toggle hooks, and UAC-restricted contexts can interfere.

Hooks enabled but no pill shows up

• Confirm ~/.claude/settings.json contains entries with "source": "navi" pointing to your current navi.exe path.
• If you moved navi.exe after enabling, re-toggle Disable → Enable so the stored path refreshes.
• Try tray → Test Notification; if that works but real Claude Code events don't, the issue is on the hook side — check Claude Code's hook logs.

License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.