This guide walks you through opening your first Claude Code session inside Notchly, navigating to a project, understanding what the notch pill is telling you, creating a safety checkpoint before a big edit, and splitting the pane so you can watch Claude work while you keep coding alongside it. By the end you’ll have the core muscle memory that makes Notchly feel fast.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/javierpr0/Notchly/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Open the terminal panel
There are three ways to reveal the Notchly panel from any app:
- Hover your cursor over the MacBook notch at the very top of the display — the panel slides down automatically.
- Click the Notchly icon in the menu bar.
- Press backtick (
`) as a global hotkey from any app, with no modifier keys.
Navigate to your project
Press Cmd+T to open a new tab. A fresh shell starts in your home directory.You can also drag a folder from Finder onto the panel. Notchly opens a new tab rooted in that directory immediately. If the folder contains a
CLAUDE.md file, Claude launches automatically — no need to type claude yourself.Start Claude Code
Run As Claude works, the notch pill changes color to reflect its current state:
You can watch this from any app — you never need to switch back to Notchly to know what Claude is doing. When Claude finishes a task or needs your approval, a macOS notification fires. The “needs input” notification includes a Continue button so you can approve Claude’s highlighted choice without switching apps at all.
claude in the terminal to start a Claude Code session:| Pill color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Amber (expanded) | Claude is actively working |
| Orange | Claude is waiting for your input or approval |
| Green | The task just completed |
Save a checkpoint before big changes
Before letting Claude make significant edits to your codebase, take a git snapshot you can roll back to:Press Cmd+S inside the panel.Notchly creates a git snapshot stored as a custom git ref (
refs/Notchy-snapshots/<project>/<timestamp>). It uses a temporary index file so your actual staging area is never disturbed.To restore a checkpoint later, click the menu bar icon → Checkpoint → Restore from and pick the snapshot you want. You can also access checkpoints from the tab’s right-click context menu.Split the pane for side-by-side work
Split the current pane so you can run a second shell alongside Claude:
- Cmd+D — split the pane to the right
- Cmd+Shift+D — split the pane downward
cd independently in each pane, run tests in one while Claude edits in another, and split as many times as you need.Essential shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
` (backtick) | Toggle panel open / closed |
| Cmd+T | New tab |
| Cmd+D | Split pane right |
| Cmd+Shift+D | Split pane down |
| Cmd+S | Save git checkpoint |
| Cmd+F | Search terminal output |
| Cmd+P | Open command palette |
| Cmd+1–9 | Jump to the nth tab |
The color-coded notch pill is only visible on displays with a physical notch (MacBook Pro 14” / 16” 2021+, MacBook Air M2+). On other Macs, the pill is still rendered but sized to its content rather than the notch cutout. Session status also appears in the menu bar icon: a count badge shows how many Claude sessions are actively working, so you always have a status signal regardless of which Mac you’re on.