Width

grid · 12 × 3 · 0 pt · drag a field, a divider or the edge

title

Notifications you’d actually design.

Name: Herald
Author: IVG Design

body

Any app declares the data it can send. You design, on a grid of any size, exactly how it shows up: persistent, interactive banners with history, sound and actions. They stay until you deal with them, sit above everything, and never steal focus.

icon

time

--:--

actions

Download Herald · 1.9.1 Read the API docs

You can’t restyle a macOS notification, and you can’t get one back. Herald fixes both.

macOS Notification Center

Deploy finished

Built in 42 s with no warnings. The new landing page is live.

now

Herald

Deploy finished

herald.site

Built in 42 s with no warnings. The new landing page is live.

now

A system alert can stay on screen, but it is one Apple template with the buttons the app registered, and it can take focus. A Herald banner is laid out by you, acts on your Mac, never takes focus, and every one lands in a searchable history.

notification centerherald

layoutOne Apple template: icon, title, subtitle or body, one thumbnailYour own grid: text, images, badges, progress, Rive, buttons, nine alignment points

actionsThe buttons the app registered; no scripts or callbacks of yoursURLs, callbacks, commands, scripts, Apple Shortcuts, open an app, snooze, dismiss

confirmationNone inline; a click hands off to the appCommands ask first; the question is drawn in the banner itself

replyA text reply, when the app offers oneTyped or recorded reply, with a transcript, relayed back to the sender

persistenceBanners leave on their own unless you switch the app to AlertsStays until you deal with it. Snooze returns it later; dismiss sends it to History

historyNotification Center lists them, but you can’t search it or re-show oneEvery banner, spoken message and action lands in a searchable per-app History; re-show or export any

groupingBy app, or by the thread the app setsBy app, issuer or sender, stacked with a counter

voiceA sound; no speechReads the message aloud with a local voice (Kokoro)

focusClicking a notification activates the appStatus-bar level panels that never take key or main window status. Never takes focus, not on show, not on click

agentsNo story for an agent or a remote senderAn MCP server and a relay: Claude Code or Claude Desktop can send, search, re-show and read receipts

Apps declare. You design. Herald renders.

An app registers a manifest once: the fields it can send, sample values, the actions it offers. You lay those fields out in the Designer. Every notification from then on is rendered through your template.

manifest

{ "app": "ci.bot",

"title": "Build passed",

"status": "OK",

"body": "142 tests, 0 failures · main",

"log": "https://ci.example.com/142",

"action": "deploy"

}

template · 4 × 3

icon

title{title}

status{status}

body{body}

log{log}

action{action}

when a field is empty:

Nothing is empty: all three rows are drawn.

banner

Build passedOK

142 tests, 0 failures · main

Open logDeploy

A grid, not a form. Any size.

As many rows and columns as the banner needs, merged where you like. Drop fields, images, badges, buttons, progress bars, SF Symbols and Rive animations into cells; align them on nine points; decide whether an empty field collapses or holds its place.

The Herald Designer: issuer and templates, components, assets and fields on the left; live preview and grid canvas in the centre; inspector on the right

Hover or focus a region of the Designer

1
Issuer & templates
Pick the app you are designing for. Its manifest fields become the tokens you place; each issuer keeps its own templates and a default.
2
Live preview
The real banner, rendered by the same code that draws it on screen. Sample data or the last real notification, light or dark. Send test shows it for real.
3
Grid canvas
Any rows × columns. Drag the rulers to resize tracks, merge or split cells, drop components, align on nine points. The dashed cells are empty slots.
4
Inspector
Everything about the selection: name, accent, what empty fields do (collapse or leave in place), grid width, gap, padding, every column and row.
5
Components
Text, image, app icon, time, button, actions, icon button, badge, stack count, progress, Rive animation, spacer. Drag onto a cell or click to add.
6
Assets & fields
Rive files the issuer ships, and the issuer’s fields with their sample values. Drag a field onto a cell to bind it.

1Issuer & templates

Pick the app you are designing for. Its manifest fields become the tokens you place; each issuer keeps its own templates and a default.

2Live preview

The real banner, rendered by the same code that draws it on screen. Sample data or the last real notification, light or dark. Send test shows it for real.

3Grid canvas

Any rows × columns. Drag the rulers to resize tracks, merge or split cells, drop components, align on nine points. The dashed cells are empty slots.

4Inspector

Everything about the selection: name, accent, what empty fields do (collapse or leave in place), grid width, gap, padding, every column and row.

5Components

Text, image, app icon, time, button, actions, icon button, badge, stack count, progress, Rive animation, spacer. Drag onto a cell or click to add.

6Assets & fields

Rive files the issuer ships, and the issuer’s fields with their sample values. Drag a field onto a cell to bind it.

Buttons that run a script.

An app ships its own actions in the manifest. You can relabel, hide, reorder them, or add your own: open a URL, run a shell command or script, trigger an Apple Shortcut, call back into the app. Dangerous ones ask first, inline, without a dialog.

CI BotBuild 4f2a passed

All 214 tests passed on main.

Per app or per template

Mark an action as needing confirmation and Herald swaps the button row for a yes/no strip inside the banner. Press Deploy on the banner to see it. Callbacks report success, failure or still-running, so a banner is only dismissed when the thing actually happened.

Loud when it matters. Quiet when it doesn’t.

Quiet hours

Pick windows where voice and sound stay off and, if you want, banners wait. Per app overrides for the ones that may wake you.

voice and sound muted 22:00–07:00

mute soundno voicehold banners until morning

Stacks with a counter

Same sender again? The banner doesn’t multiply, the count goes up. Click to fan the stack out, dismiss the whole group at once. Group by app, by issuer, or by sender.

The count goes up; click the banner to fan the stack out.

Rive <[email protected]>

A voice, if you want one

Attach a spoken message to any notification. Local neural TTS, nothing leaves the Mac, and the text is logged so you can read what you missed.

“Build passed. One hundred forty-two tests, zero failures.”

Kokoro, rendered on the Mac. This is the real voice; the text always lands in History.

Let your agent speak to you.

An agent running in the cloud, ChatGPT, Codex, Claude, can reach your Mac even when you’re not looking at it. It sends a banner that reads itself aloud, asks you a question, and waits for your answer: typed, or spoken into the banner with one press.

Speaks the message out loud with a local voice, nothing leaves your Mac.
Reply by typing, or hold Record and talk; the agent gets your words and the transcript.
Not at your Mac? The relay queues it and the agent gets a receipt the moment it is shown.
One switch to enable; the agent approves itself with a code you confirm in a banner; revoke any time.

Claude · cloud sessionDeploy to production now?

All 214 tests passed on main. Say the word and I’ll ship 4f2a to prod.

Receipts: received · displayed · spoken · replied

Type a reply or press Record. Nothing leaves this page.

Let your agent design the banner.

Herald ships an MCP server with 60+ tools. Local agents, Claude Code, Codex CLI, Claude Desktop, install it with one click, or with the steps in the MCP guide, and can register an app, author a template, attach a script or a Shortcut, render a preview and send a test. Cloud agents reach the same Mac through your relay, with OAuth or a device code you approve in a banner.

Install it in your agent

Claude CodeHow to install
Codex CLIHow to install
Claude DesktopHow to install
Generic (JSON)

How to install opens the steps for that client in the docs. The app does the same in one click.

What the agent can do

put_manifest: declare fields, samples, actions
put_template / validate_template: the grid, checked
render_preview: a PNG from the real renderer, no window
add_action_rule: attach a script, Shortcut or callback
send_test / speak: show it for real, hear it
list_history / list_stacks: read what was shown

Ten lines, any language.

Loopback HTTP + JSON on 127.0.0.1 with a bearer token Herald writes for you. Clients for Swift, Python and Node; a CLI for everything else.

Send from your language

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:48617/v1/notify \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $(cat ~/Library/Application\ Support/Herald/token)" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"app":"ci.bot","title":"Build passed",
       "body":"142 tests, 0 failures",
       "buttons":[{"label":"Open","url":"https://ci.example.com/142"}],
       "speak":true}'

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:48617/v1/notify \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $(cat ~/Library/Application\ Support/Herald/token)" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"app":"ci.bot","title":"Build passed",
       "body":"142 tests, 0 failures",
       "buttons":[{"label":"Open","url":"https://ci.example.com/142"}],
       "speak":true}'

import HeraldClient

let id = try await HeraldClient.shared.notify(HeraldNotification(
    app: "ci.bot", title: "Build passed", body: "142 tests, 0 failures",
    buttons: [HeraldButton(label: "Open", url: "https://ci.example.com/142")]))

from herald import Herald

Herald().notify(app="ci.bot", title="Build passed", body="142 tests, 0 failures",
                buttons=[{"label": "Open", "url": "https://ci.example.com/142"}],
                speak=True)

const { Herald } = require('./herald');

await new Herald().notify('ci.bot', 'Build passed', {
  body: '142 tests, 0 failures',
  buttons: [{ label: 'Open', url: 'https://ci.example.com/142' }],
  speak: true,
});

herald notify --app ci.bot --title "Build passed" \
  --body "142 tests, 0 failures" \
  --button "Open=https://ci.example.com/142" --speak

Building an app? Integrate Herald into your app walks through finding Herald, the manifest, buttons, a default template and testing.

Already speaking Herald

WebWatcher Page and Gmail watchers as persistent banners with working Open / Archive / Mark read buttons.
bidbot (example in the repo) A complete issuer: manifest, template bundle, callbacks and Shortcuts, in docs/examples/bidbot.
Your scripts Any cron job, build, or agent that can run curl.

What changed.

Full changelog

1.9.12026-10-04The question a follow-up puts on a banner says it is a follow-up and how long the banner was left up.
1.9.02026-10-04Follow-up.
1.8.22026-10-04Settings > General: the reset button reads "Reset to 48617", without a thousands separator in the port number.

Ready when you are.

Free and open source. Signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Menu-bar app, no account, nothing leaves your Mac.

1.9.1

build 23 · 2026-10-05

≈ 15 MB

DMG

SHA-25670c042d9…e28cd721

macOS 13.1 Ventura or later · Apple Silicon
Optional: Kokoro voice (≈ 340 MB download, local, resumable)
Optional: Shortcuts, Reminders access when you use those actions

Download for Mac · DMG · ≈ 15 MB All releases on GitHub