Agent Caffeine

Agent Caffeine is a menu bar app for Mac that keeps your Mac awake while AI coding agents work, also with the lid closed, and lets it sleep when they are done.

It detects more than 40 coding agents, such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, opencode and Gemini CLI. Claude Code, Codex and Cursor report their own state (working, waiting for you, or idle), and Agent Caffeine reads it on the Mac. It also watches the commands an agent started, so a build that is still busy keeps the Mac awake. An agent that waits for your answer keeps the Mac awake for 5 minutes, then the Mac can sleep.

There are three modes: always, while an agent is open, or while an agent is working (the default). A closed lid on the power adapter works from the start. On battery it needs a small helper that you allow once in System Settings.

Safety comes first. When the battery is at 20% or the Mac gets too hot, Agent Caffeine lets the Mac sleep and tells you why. You can pause it for 30 minutes, 1 hour or until tomorrow, or keep the Mac reachable for 1, 2 or 4 hours so a message from your phone reaches the agent.

For agents there is a command line tool and an MCP server. An agent can run a long job as "agent-caffeine hold -- <command>" and the Mac stays awake until the job ends.

Who it is for: developers who leave AI agents running on a Mac and do not want them cut off by sleep.

Pricing: a 7-day free trial with every feature, no account and no card. Then $9 once at the launch price (full price $14), one license for up to 3 Macs, with 1 year of updates. Needs macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon or Intel.