Guides

Aider

A card appears on your Mac when Aider has replied and is waiting for you: for your next message, or for a yes/no answer such as "Run shell command?". The next wait updates the same card.

Waiting only, and it can't tell when you answered. Aider's one hook, its notifications command, says only "I'm waiting": not what for, and nothing when you reply. So the card stays while you type. It goes when Aider exits (the 5-minute needs-you flush notices) or after an hour (NEEDS_YOU_AIDER_EXPIRY_HOURS).

Quickest: add --aider --alerts to an invite link's one-liner (or paste the link's agent prompt into an agent on that machine; it names the flag):

curl -fsSL <join_url>/install.sh | bash -s -- --yes --aider --alerts

Then restart Aider. Reference: integrations/aider/README.md.

Manual install #

On a sender machine, from a checkout of this repo:

integrations/aider/install-aider-notifications.sh    # ~/.aider.conf.yml

It copies the hook to ~/.config/needs-you/aider/hooks/ and adds this block to ~/.aider.conf.yml (backing the file up first):

# needs-you (managed by install-aider-notifications.sh; do not edit between these markers)
notifications: true
notifications-command: '"$HOME/.config/needs-you/aider/hooks/needs-you-hook.sh" notify aider'
# end needs-you

It only edits the file when that's safe: not a symlink, a plain YAML mapping, and neither key set already. Otherwise it changes nothing there, prints the two lines for you to add (or pass as --notifications --notifications-command '...'), and exits 4; the invite installer lists it under "Not set up". --uninstall removes the block, and so does needs-you uninstall-hooks --aider.

A .aider.conf.yml in a repo or the current directory, and AIDER_NOTIFICATIONS/AIDER_NOTIFICATIONS_COMMAND in the environment, override the one in your home directory.

Opt in #

NEEDS_YOU_AGENT_ALERTS=1 aider                               # one session
echo 'NEEDS_YOU_AGENT_ALERTS=1' >> ~/.config/needs-you/env   # every session on this machine

What you'll see #

One card per Aider process. Nothing from the chat is sent. NEEDS_YOU_AIDER_EXPIRY_HOURS (default 1) sets how long it lasts without a new wait; NEEDS_YOU_AGENT_TURN_CARDS=0 turns it off.

Aider runs the command with your terminal as its input and waits for it, so the hook never reads its input and returns at once.

Check it works #

needs-you doctor    # the "aider notifications" line should be OK

Then start Aider in a repo, send a message, and the card arrives once the reply is done. Quit Aider and run needs-you flush: it says resolved 1 from ended sessions. NEEDS_YOU_HOOK_LOG=/tmp/ny-hook.log aider logs each hook call (troubleshooting).

Tested live with Aider 0.86.2 against a local model stub.

This page is docs/guides/aider.md in the repo. View or edit it on GitHub.