An Agent Status Light for Cline: Use Native Notifications First

Status Light is a $45 matte-black desk object with red, amber and green domed lenses arranged vertically. Cline can already send operating-system notifications when approval is required. The light's power, connection and control protocol are unconfirmed, and Cline's notification setting does not by itself provide a hardware command.

What Cline states deserve red, amber and green?

Begin with one narrow event: Cline reports that human attention is required. That does not prove the task failed, succeeded, finished or passed tests. An approval request also needs its tool and proposed input before a decision can be made.

Use amber for “inspect Cline” only if the source is reliable. Leave other colours unused until independently sourced.

How do you trigger the light when Cline needs approval?

First enable and test Cline's native notification. Then confirm whether the real lamp documents a local interface. Without a supported control protocol and an approved event adapter, there is no honest wiring recipe.

Do not scrape pixels, notification text or private task content. An adapter should receive only a bounded event and timestamp, expose errors and always support off.

Does a light beat editor notifications you already ignore?

It may be more visible across a room, but another signal can become another ignored object. Measure missed native notifications first and check focus-mode or operating-system suppression. A sound or visual banner may already solve the problem at no hardware cost.

Consider coworkers, cameras and accessibility. A bright colour can disclose work rhythm or distract even without revealing content.

What can the light never know about a run?

It cannot judge code quality, test meaning, repository cleanliness or whether approval is appropriate. It also cannot safely combine concurrent tasks without project identity and expiry. Cline's actual panel remains authoritative.

Simulate adapter failure, restart, two workspaces and a delayed event. Old signals must expire or become unknown, never replay as current. Clear amber when review begins, not when the operation is assumed good. Log only event type and time, with no command, prompt or path. If native notifications are sufficient, stop the project there.

The Status Light is a possible output shell after interface verification. Its three lenses cannot replace reading Cline's requested action. Cline also documents notifications for an auto-approved terminal command that has continued running, which is a different event from waiting for approval. Do not collapse them into the same colour. Name event sources in the adapter design before selecting hues. Test whether the notification arrives while Cline is focused and while the editor is backgrounded, since platform behavior can differ. A manual lamp-test mode should be visibly distinct and should time out on its own. Never let a successful hardware write acknowledge or approve the underlying Cline request. Delivery and authorization must remain separate systems.