Claude Code’s Stop hook plays a sound on completion, halving task turnaround

Anand Rathnas uses Claude Code as his primary coding assistant while developing the jo4.io platform [devto]. He noticed that each time Claude finished a response or asked a question, the interaction remained silent, offering no immediate cue that work could resume [devto]. To solve this, Rathnas edited the Claude configuration file at ~/.claude/settings.json and enabled the Stop hook, which fires whenever Claude hands control back to the user [devto]. The hook runs a user‑supplied command; Rathnas pointed it at a simple script that plays the macOS “Funk” system sound [devto]. After the change, his average task turnaround time dropped by half, a measurable boost to his daily productivity [devto]. The Stop hook supplies JSON on stdin, including a last_assistant_message field that scripts can inspect to decide which sound to emit [devto]. By branching on that field, a Bash script can play a success chime when test results are green and an error tone when a build fails [devto]. This flexibility lets users map any Claude event to a distinct audible alert, turning silent completions into clear signals [devto]. Rathnas reports that the audible feedback reduces the mental load of watching the terminal for prompts, letting him stay in the flow of coding [devto]. The approach requires only a few lines of JSON and a shell script, making it accessible to anyone familiar with Claude’s hook system [devto]. As a result, the Stop hook becomes a lightweight productivity layer that integrates seamlessly with existing development tools [devto].