melding

melding is a command-line tool for sending macOS notifications (alerts), built with Swift. It is a fork of vjeantet/alerter, rewritten to use UNUserNotificationCenter for full compatibility with macOS 26+.

The program exits when the user interacts with the notification or when it times out, printing the result to stdout as plain text or JSON.

Requires macOS 13.0 or later.

Two kinds of alerts can be triggered: Reply Alert and Actions Alert.

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Installation

Homebrew (recommended)

brew install elkidd/tap/melding

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/elkidd/melding.git
cd melding
make bundle        # builds + assembles + signs melding.app in dist/
make install       # installs to /Library/Application\ Support/melding.app + /usr/local/bin/melding

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Usage

melding --message|--remove|--list VALUE [options]

Display a simple notification

melding --message "Hello!"

Multiple action buttons

melding --message "Deploy to UAT?" --actions "Now,Later,Cancel"

Yes or No

melding --title "ProjectX" --subtitle "New tag detected" \
        --message "Deploy now?" --actions "Yes,No"

Reply alert

melding --reply "Type release name" --message "What is the name of this release?" \
        --title "Deploy in progress..."

Piped input

echo "Build complete!" | melding --sound default

With timeout and group (replaces previous notification)

melding --message "Check complete" --group "my-tool" --timeout 30

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Shell script example

ANSWER="$(melding --message 'Start now?' --actions 'YES,MAYBE,NO' --timeout 10)"
case $ANSWER in
    "@TIMEOUT")       echo "Timed out" ;;
    "@CLOSED")        echo "Dismissed" ;;
    "@CONTENTCLICKED") echo "Clicked notification body" ;;
    "@ACTIONCLICKED") echo "Clicked default action" ;;
    "YES")            echo "Action: YES" ;;
    "MAYBE")          echo "Action: MAYBE" ;;
    "NO")             echo "Action: NO" ;;
    *)                echo "Unknown: $ANSWER" ;;
esac

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Options

At a minimum, you must specify --message, --remove, or --list.

Option	Description
--message VALUE	The notification message body. Can also be piped via stdin.
--title VALUE	Notification title. Defaults to Terminal.
--subtitle VALUE	Notification subtitle.
--reply TEXT	Display as a reply-type alert. TEXT is the input placeholder. Cannot be combined with --actions.
--actions A,B,C	Comma-separated action buttons. Cannot be combined with --reply.
--sound NAME	Sound to play on delivery. Use default for the system default sound.
--group ID	Group ID — only one notification per group is shown at a time; new ones replace old ones. Use ALL with --remove to clear everything.
--thread ID	Thread ID — groups related notifications visually in Notification Center (they collapse into a stack).
--level passive|active|time-sensitive|critical	Interruption level. passive = silent, no banner. active = default. time-sensitive = breaks through Focus mode. critical = always shown, ignores silent/DND.
--remove ID	Remove the notification with the given group ID. Use ALL to remove all.
--list ID	List notifications by group ID. Use ALL to list everything. Outputs JSON.
--timeout NUMBER	Auto-close after NUMBER seconds. Defaults to 0 (no timeout).
--delay NUMBER	Deliver after NUMBER seconds. Defaults to 0. Cannot be combined with --at.
--at TIME	Deliver at a specific time: HH:mm or yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm. Cannot be combined with --delay.
--app-icon PATH	URL or path to an image to use as the app icon.
--content-image PATH	URL or path to a local image to attach to the notification.
--json	Output result as JSON.
--version	Print version and exit.

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Output values

Value	Meaning
@CLOSED	User dismissed the notification
@TIMEOUT	Notification timed out
@CONTENTCLICKED	User clicked the notification body
@ACTIONCLICKED	User clicked the default action button
@REPLIED	User submitted a reply (plain text output is the reply text itself)
<ACTION>	User clicked a named action button (e.g. Yes, No)

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Release workflow

./scripts/release.sh        # bump version, build, sign, zip, tag, GitHub Release

The formula in elkidd/homebrew-tap must be updated manually after a new release.

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Background

melding is a fork of vjeantet/alerter. The original used NSUserNotification private APIs which crash on macOS 26+. This fork migrates to UNUserNotificationCenter and packages the binary as a proper .app bundle (required by Apple's notification framework).

The name comes from the Dutch/German melden — to announce, to report — and the English melding, a blending of two things: the terminal and the notification system.

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License

MIT — Copyright (C) 2012-2026 Valère Jeantet, Eloy Durán, Julien Blanchard, Miguel Cabeza