Cute beeps for your terminal

January 27, 2026

I think computers should beep. Put this in ~/.local/bin/bip if you agree:

#/usr/bin/bash

notes=()
times=()
t=0
for arg in $@; do
  if [[ $arg != 0 ]]; then
    notes+=(sine $arg)
    times+=(${t}s)
  fi
  t=$((t + 3500))
done

play -qn -c1 synth 1 ${notes[*]} \
	fade 0.01 0.1 0.06 delay ${times[*]} gain -20

The play command is provided by sox.

Now you can run long_command && bip C4 D4 G4, for example. I use it in my .claude/settings.json to have Claude chirp at me, with different little melodies depending on what it wants.

{
  "hooks": {
    "Stop": [
      {
        "hooks": [ { "type": "command", "command": "bip D5 F4" } ]
      }
    ],
    "Notification": [
      {
        "matcher": "permission_prompt",
        "hooks": [ { "type": "command", "command": "bip D5 E5" } ]
      },
      {
        "matcher": "idle_prompt",
        "hooks": [ { "type": "command", "command": "bip A4 B4 A4" } ]
      }
    ],
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "AskUserQuestion",
        "hooks": [ { "type": "command", "command": "bip D5 E5" } ]
      }
    ]
  }
}