A sound you can trust — not another ping.

macOS plays the same alert for a code-owner review request as it does for a Dependabot bump. After a week of that, your brain learns the sound means nothing, and you start missing the pings that actually matter.

The problem with one-size-fits-all alerts

• Habituation. Identical sounds for important and trivial events train you to ignore both.
• No schedule. Notifications don't respect your focus time or time zone — a merge from the EU office buzzes during your dinner.
• Wrong channel. Email notifications pile up unseen; browser badges vanish when the tab closes.

A setup that survives week two

1. Pick one app as your single GitHub surface. For this walkthrough we'll use DevNotify, which lives in the menu bar rather than a tab.
2. Enable its notification sound only for mentions and review requests. Everything else updates the badge silently.
3. Set quiet hours for evenings and weekends. The unread count still accumulates — it just waits until morning to speak.
4. Turn off GitHub email notifications entirely. One inbox, one source of truth.

Why menu bar beats browser badges

A badge tied to a browser tab dies the moment you close it. A menu-bar count is visible in every app, all day — so "silent but visible" becomes possible. Loud when it matters, quiet when it doesn't.

Download DevNotify (free trial)

macOS 13+. Apple Silicon and Intel. $19 lifetime license after the 7-day trial.