Clamshell Sentinel
A small macOS menu bar app for agent-era laptop behavior: sleep normally when nothing is running, stay awake on lid close when Codex, Claude Code, aider, OpenClaw, Hermes, Docker jobs, or another configured process is active.
What It Does
Watches Agents
Built-in patterns cover common CLI agents and harnesses, with one-line watchlist entries for local tools.
Toggles Simply
The menu bar exposes an enabled switch plus an always-awake override for manual sessions.
Restores Sleep
When watched work exits, Sentinel restores normal macOS sleep behavior.
Install
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jonathanpopham/clamshell-sentinel/main/scripts/install.sh)"
Add custom processes in ~/.config/clamshell-sentinel/watchlist.txt. Use one simple line per thing to watch:
my-agent
command: make release
docker compose up
Save the file and Sentinel reloads it automatically within a few seconds. macOS only. The app uses pmset disablesleep when macOS accepts it and falls back to caffeinate assertions for idle sleep prevention.