claude-code-pet

Claude Pet Companion is a Windows desktop app that places an animated character on your screen while you work with Claude Code, the AI coding tool. The character watches what Claude Code is doing and plays different animations depending on the situation: it bounces around when a task is running, sits still when idle, and shows a speech bubble when Claude Code needs you to approve or deny a permission request. The bubble also briefly summarizes what it is asking to do, so you can make the decision without looking at the terminal.

You control the pet through a right-click menu on the floating window, or by typing the slash command /pet inside Claude Code. The command can also describe a pet you want made, such as "make a tiny moon rabbit with a brass staff," and Claude Code will walk through a creation workflow to produce a new pet package for you. Pets are stored as a small folder containing a sprite sheet image and a JSON config file, and you can import custom ones through the same menu.

The tool is compatible with Codex-style pet packages. If you have pets installed from a Codex setup, the companion scans that folder on startup and copies valid entries into its own pets directory, so the same characters show up in both tools without any manual work.

Under the hood, Claude Code's hook system writes a small JSON file whenever its state changes. The pet app, built with Tauri and React, polls that file and picks the right animation row from the active sprite sheet. This design means the pet never interferes with Claude Code's own output or terminal display.

Installation is a standard Windows installer downloaded from the releases page. You do not need Rust or Node.js to use it. Running the app for the first time sets up the hooks, creates the /pet command, and copies itself to a stable location so everything keeps working if the original installer file is moved or deleted.