Launches Claude Code as a live pairing coach on your Tuple call when transcription starts.

When call-transcription-started fires, this trigger opens your preferred terminal and runs tuple connect --harness claude "<coaching purpose>". Connect resolves the call state, gives Claude a context prompt, and points it at the live transcript — so Claude catches up on everything said so far, then watches the call as it happens as an active pairing coach.

What it does

tuple connect brings Claude into the call and tells it how to follow along. The COACH_PURPOSE string (set near the top of call-transcription-started) steers Claude toward pairing-coach behavior on top of connect's base prompt:

During the call:

• Watches the live pairing dynamic for known anti-patterns: backseat driving, a quiet navigator, a silent driver, no shared goal set up front, grinding without swaps or breaks.
• Tracks lightweight session state: talk-time balance, who last spoke, whether a goal was stated, and how long since the last role swap or break.
• When confidence is high, surfaces a single one-line move the pair can make right now — printed to the terminal. Otherwise stays silent.
• Does not interrupt the call, does not post anywhere external.

When the call ends:

• Reads the full transcript and writes a retro to pairing-evaluation.md:
  • How the session ran: shared goal? talk-time balance? swaps and breaks, or a grind?
  • Anti-patterns that showed up, each named with a timestamped quote.
  • What worked: up to 3 moves worth repeating.
  • One thing to practice: the single highest-leverage change for the next session.

Tuning the coaching

The entire coaching framing lives in the COACH_PURPOSE variable near the top of call-transcription-started. Edit it there to change what the coach watches for, how it intervenes, or what the retro covers — no other files need to change.

Choosing your terminal

By default the trigger opens your system's default handler for .command files. To force a specific terminal, set PREFERRED_TERM at the top of call-transcription-started (or in the environment):

PREFERRED_TERM="iterm"   # ghostty | iterm | alacritty | terminal

The terminal runs launch-coach-pairing-claude.command, whose #!/bin/zsh -li shebang sources your shell profile, so tuple and claude resolve from the same PATH you get in a normal terminal.

Prerequisites

• macOS
• Claude Code installed so claude works in a new terminal
• The tuple CLI on your interactive shell PATH (with connect and transcription support)
  • Install it from the Tuple app: its Transcription settings have an Install button that links tuple onto your PATH.
• Tuple transcription enabled for the call

Installation

Drop this directory into your Tuple triggers folder:

~/.tuple/triggers/coach-pairing-claude/

The trigger fires the next time call transcription starts.

How it works

call-transcription-started fires with no call-specific arguments. This trigger:

1. Creates a working directory per start, ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/tuple-coach-pairing-claude/<timestamp>-<pid>.
2. Writes the COACH_PURPOSE to a coach-purpose.txt sidecar file and an executable launch-coach-pairing-claude.command wrapper into it.
3. Opens it in your preferred terminal via open (LaunchServices). No AppleScript and no direct binary launch, so it triggers no macOS accessibility prompt and no stray windows.
4. The wrapper starts a login-interactive zsh, cds to that directory, and runs tuple connect --harness claude "$COACH_PURPOSE".

There is no dedup: each transcription-start gets its own directory, so stopping and restarting transcription spawns a fresh coach while older ones keep running.

For local testing without opening a terminal, set COACH_PAIRING_CLAUDE_DRY_RUN=1; it writes the launcher and exits.

Acknowledgments

The pairing framework is drawn from Tuple's Pair Programming Guide (its antipatterns, styles, and session template) and from the wider practice, notably Birgitta Böckeler and Nina Siessegger's On Pair Programming and Llewellyn Falco's strong-style rule ("for an idea to go from your head into the computer it must go through someone else's hands").