claudlet 🐾

English | 한국어

A tiny pixel creature that lives on your desktop and reacts to Claude Code in real time — it types while Claude works, waits when Claude needs you, celebrates when it's done, and roams around while you code. Click it to bring the terminal back to the front.

Drawn entirely in code — no image assets — so it's self-contained and original (CC0 artwork).

See it in action

Real desktop capture. Pets perch on the terminal titlebar, roam the desktop, doze off (💤) between tasks, and clamber over whatever else is on screen.

Real desktop capture — they wander over whatever else is on your screen.

Agent companions

When Claude spawns subagents, a little hard-hatted sidekick trails your pet for each one — a duckling chain that follows it around, mirrors what the subagent is doing, and waves goodbye when its agent finishes.

Real desktop capture — two subagents, two hatted companions trailing the session's pet.

Each companion wears a random hat so you can tell them apart:

Install

Install with pipx (an isolated app install — pulls the deps, incl. pyobjc-framework-Quartz on macOS, and puts the claudlet* commands on your PATH), then wire it into Claude Code:

pipx install claudlet
claudlet-install      # hooks + /claudlet skill, for every agent found (idempotent)

claudlet-install registers the hooks for each agent it finds and links the /claudlet skill into that agent's own skills folder (~/.claude/skills, ~/.codex/skills). On Linux it also drops a desktop entry and icon for the settings app.

Other agents (Codex)

claudlet isn't Claude-Code-only. claudlet-install (and claudlet-install-hooks) registers hooks for every agent it finds — Claude Code via ~/.claude/settings.json, Codex via ~/.codex/hooks.json. Narrow it when you want just one:

claudlet-install-hooks --agent codex          # only Codex
claudlet-install-hooks --agent claude,codex   # both, explicitly
claudlet-install-hooks --remove --agent codex # unhook just Codex

Codex runs hooks only when ~/.codex/config.toml has:

[features]
hooks = true

Other apps' hook entries in those files are left alone — claudlet only ever touches its own.

A Codex session's pet wears the codex creature by default — a cloud-headed mascot whose face is a terminal prompt:

When more than one agent is detected, the settings page (claudlet-config) grows an agent row, so Claude Code and Codex can wear different creatures.

One difference worth knowing: Codex sends no Notification event, so the states Claude Code drives through it (permission prompt, idle nudge) don't fire for Codex — its own PermissionRequest covers the permission case instead.

Check your version with claudlet-version (installed vs latest release). Update to the newest release with pipx upgrade claudlet && claudlet-install, or to the tip of develop (edge) with pipx install --force "git+https://github.com/YeeDochi/Claudlet@develop" && claudlet-install. Either way, restart your Claude Code session afterward (claude --continue) so the new hooks + pet code load. Or just run /claudlet update (release) / /claudlet update latest (master) from inside Claude Code and follow the prompts.

To uninstall, order matters — unhook first, then remove the package. claudlet-uninstall is the only step that removes the hooks from ~/.claude/settings.json; if you delete the package first, those hooks linger and Claude Code keeps trying to run a claudlet-hook that no longer exists.

claudlet-uninstall        # stops pets, unregisters the hooks + /claudlet skill
                          #   (add --purge to also delete your config)
pipx uninstall claudlet   # only after the line above succeeds

pipx ensurepath        # add pipx's bin dir to PATH

python ~/claudlet/bin/claudlet-uninstall
rm -rf ~/claudlet                                   # Windows: rmdir /s "%USERPROFILE%\claudlet"

pipx install claudlet && claudlet-uninstall && pipx uninstall claudlet

# Linux / macOS
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YeeDochi/Claudlet/master/install.py | python3 -

# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YeeDochi/Claudlet/master/install.py | python -

# Linux / macOS — add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc, then restart the shell
export PATH="$HOME/claudlet/bin:$PATH"

# Windows (PowerShell) — persist for your user, then restart the terminal
setx PATH "$env:USERPROFILE\claudlet\bin;$env:PATH"

New Claude Code sessions then auto-spawn a pet. Restart any already-running session to pick up the hooks — or launch one now with claudlet.

Best on KDE Plasma. Perching on and riding windows also works on Windows (Win32) and macOS (needs pyobjc-framework-Quartz, which the installer adds automatically; the pet self-calibrates window coordinates at runtime) — all three are hardware-verified. Elsewhere the window tricks switch off gracefully and the pet just roams. See Platform support.

What it shows

The creature's pose tracks what Claude is doing — editing, reading, calling MCP, thinking, waiting on your input, celebrating (see the sheet above). While Claude runs unattended (auto / bypass mode) it shows that too — the built-in pulls a VR visor down over its eyes. It also perches on and rides your windows — walking along the top or living inside — and clips/hides when the window it's on is covered or minimized.

When Claude runs subagents, a hatted companion appears for each one (up to three) and trails the pet in a duckling chain, mirroring the subagent's activity and leaving with a little celebration when it finishes — so you can see agent work happening at a glance.

Talking to it

The pet no longer only listens. Right-click → 💬 Start a conversation… opens a chat window: the exchange above, a line to type into below. Enter types what you wrote straight into this session, submitted. Right-click ➤ → 📝 Leave as a note has the pet hold the note in its mouth until the next hook boundary — if the agent is working it lands at the next tool call, and if it's idle it rides along with your next prompt. You can always see what it's carrying, so nothing goes along without you knowing, and the right-click menu drops it if you change your mind.

🎯 left of the input lets you drag over part of the screen: that window sits above the input as a chip and what was read off it rides along with the next line you send (✕ drops it). The top of the window shows the creature you are talking to — its face and its name (the nickname, if you gave it one). Pointer settings — cursor shape, session profile — live under ⚙ at the top of the window. A pet started without a session opens the chat window when clicked.

The answer comes back in the creature's own voice, in a bubble above its head. The work explanation stays in the terminal as usual; only the creature's one line floats over the pet — they are different things. Small talk gets the one line, not a second work answer.

Each creature can have its own name and voice (settings page). Call it by name and it knows you mean it; the voice decides how it answers. Creatures ship with defaults — the slime drawls, the astronaut sounds like radio comms — and anything you write wins.

Works with both Claude Code and Codex, but only while they run in a terminal — sending straight away types into a real prompt. On KDE that needs Konsole's Enable the security sensitive parts of the DBus API; elsewhere Enter leaves a note instead (the input says so).

Hangul/CJK input on Linux (fcitx): the pip-installed Qt carries no fcitx input method, so the input can't take it. With the distro PyQt6 installed (sudo apt install python3-pyqt6) the pet relaunches itself on that Qt and it works.

Not in the desktop apps. The Claude desktop app and the Codex app have no prompt to type into — this feature assumes the CLI running in a terminal. On macOS, even in a terminal, sending straight away isn't there yet: notes only.

Make it yours

/claudlet setting (or claudlet-config ui) opens a page where you pick which creature the pet wears and, for each one, its colour and size. Every creature is previewed with the real renderer, so what you see is what lands on the desktop. Settings belong to the creature, so dressing one never repaints another.

When more than one agent is installed, the page gets a tab per agent — Claude Code and Codex can wear different creatures. Prefer the command line? claudlet-config wear <creature> [--agent codex] switches it without opening anything, and running pets change at once.

The page is served locally on a fixed port and opens in your ordinary browser. It also ships a web-app manifest, so you can install it from your browser's menu; after that it opens as its own window, and claudlet-config ui --app gives you that window without installing.

A creature is a small package, not a data file — the pet tells it which state to be in and everything about how that looks is inside. /claudlet make <what you want> writes one for you:

/claudlet make 검은 고양이
/claudlet make a grumpy little robot

It lands in ~/.config/claudlet/creatures/<name>/ and shows up in the settings list. Four ship with the pet:

codex is the one a Codex session's pet wears by default; the other two are there as worked examples, and neither is shaped like the built-in:

• astronaut — a humanoid. Helmet, torso, two arms, two legs, a pack on its back. Its arms hang from fixed shoulders and the hands move, and it answers the unattended flag with a lit visor and a blinking antenna rather than a headset.
• slime — no legs at all. A stride becomes a hop, and a lean is a shear rather than a rotation, because rotating a stack of thin slabs smears every edge.

Both still think, type and sleep, because the motion and the props come from the pet, not from the creature — a creature only draws a body. Read either one next to creature-authoring.md if you are writing your own.

A creature does not have to be drawn with rectangles at all. The pet sends a state and a frame and asks nothing else, so one can keep its frames as DATA — a character per dot against a palette — and blit them. At the size where a face is a dozen dots that is the difference between a face and a suggestion of one:

That one carries sixty frames cut from sprite sheets: a stride facing each way, a run, whole-body expressions, a sleeping pose, and hair that catches fire while it works unattended. The steps — and the traps, which are specific and expensive — are in Creatures made from a sprite sheet in the authoring guide.

Sharing a creature

The arrow buttons beside the creature bar export the one you are looking at as a .zip, and import one someone sent you (claudlet-config export <creature> / import <file.zip> do the same from a shell).

Importing runs someone else's Python on your machine — the pet imports the package at startup — so it is deliberately a two-step: claudlet shows you what is inside the archive and installs nothing until you say go. Archives that try to escape the target directory, hide a symlink, carry control characters in a filename, or weigh more than a creature plausibly can are refused outright, and an install that fails leaves the creature you already had untouched.

Commands

pipx install claudlet puts these on your PATH:

The /claudlet skill

claudlet-install links a /claudlet skill into every agent it found, so you can drive the pet straight from a prompt — in Claude Code or in Codex:

• /claudlet — attach a pet to this session (so it reacts to the session's activity)
• /claudlet standalone — an unattached, decorative pet
• /claudlet <motion> — jump · wave · sing · juggle · float · celebrate · thinking · sleeping · error · attention (plus list, stop)
• /claudlet setting — appearance: which creature, and its colour / size / unattended look
• /claudlet wear <creature> [for <agent>] — put a creature on, for this agent or a named one
• /claudlet export <creature> / /claudlet import <path> — share a creature as a zip (an import shows you what is inside first)
• /claudlet make <description> — write a new creature for the pet to wear
• /claudlet config — show the config, or just ask in plain language ("jump when I run Bash") and Claude edits it for you
• /claudlet update — update to the latest release (update latest for the tip of develop); shows your version and walks you through it

Docs

• Usage & interaction — drag & throw, click-to-focus, tray menu, motions, autostart, uninstall
• Configuration — remap which animation shows for which Claude Code activity (run claudlet-config or /claudlet config to locate & inspect it)
• Writing a creature — the contract, the motion/prop tools a creature inherits, and the rendering mistakes worth skipping
• Platform support — support matrix + how to test on your OS
• Contributing — dev setup, running tests, code style, branch model
• Changelog — what changed in each release (English + Korean)

Contributors

• @htto0824 — dock placement (corner slots, multi-pet alignment, drag-to-move the whole row) and Windows Terminal tab focus
• @Rio-Kyeong — art pixels snapped to the whole-pixel grid (crisp edges, no silhouette wobble as the pet bobs)
• @pawprint0706 — Windows fixes: the no-go zone editor took no mouse input at all, and skill-link junctions were re-warned about on every install
• @reujea — point at something on screen and ask about it (reads the window's text, redacts it, sends only on approval), and the log of what was asked and answered

License

Code: MIT (see LICENSE). Creature artwork: CC0 (see NOTICE).