clawd-on-desk
Desktop pet utility for AI coding agents — visualizes Claude Code activity, subagent juggling, and permission requests
Clawd is a desktop pet that provides real-time visual feedback on your AI coding agent's status, helping developers monitor long tasks and subagent activity without constant terminal focus. It integrates with Claude Code via command and HTTP permission hooks, displaying animated states for thinking, typing, building, and juggling subagents. Distinctive features include interactive permission bubbles and multi-agent support for Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Gemini, Cursor, Kiro, and opencode.
- Real-time visual feedback on AI agent activity
- 12 animated states: thinking, typing, building, juggling, sleeping
- Interactive permission bubbles for Claude Code tool calls
- Multi-agent support: Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Gemini
- Customizable themes with eye tracking and click reactions
README
View on GitHub ↗
Clawd on Desk
Clawd lives on your desktop and reacts to what your AI coding agent is doing — in real time. Start a long task, walk away, come back when the crab tells you it's done.
Thinking when you prompt, typing when tools run, juggling subagents, reviewing permissions, celebrating when tasks complete, sleeping when you step away. Ships with two built-in themes: Clawd (pixel crab) and Calico (三花猫), with full support for custom themes.
Supports Windows 11, macOS, and Ubuntu/Linux. Requires Node.js. Works with Claude Code, Codex CLI, Copilot CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor Agent, Kiro CLI, and opencode.
Features
Multi-Agent Support
- Claude Code — full integration via command hooks + HTTP permission hooks
- Codex CLI — automatic JSONL log polling (
~/.codex/sessions/), no configuration needed - Copilot CLI — command hooks via
~/.copilot/hooks/hooks.json - Gemini CLI — command hooks via
~/.gemini/settings.json(registered automatically when Clawd starts, or runnpm run install:gemini-hooks) - Cursor Agent — Cursor IDE hooks in
~/.cursor/hooks.json(registered automatically when Clawd starts, or runnpm run install:cursor-hooks) - Kiro CLI — command hooks injected into custom agent configs under
~/.kiro/agents/, plus an auto-createdclawdagent that is re-synced from Kiro's built-inkiro_defaultwhenever Clawd starts, so you can opt into hooks with minimal behavior drift viakiro-cli --agent clawdor/agent swap clawd(registered automatically when Clawd starts, or runnpm run install:kiro-hooks). State hooks have been verified on macOS. - opencode — plugin integration via
~/.config/opencode/opencode.json(registered automatically when Clawd starts); zero-latency event streaming, permission bubbles with Allow/Always/Deny, and building animations when parallel subagents are spawned via thetasktool - Multi-agent coexistence — run all agents simultaneously; Clawd tracks each session independently
Animations & Interaction
- Real-time state awareness — agent hooks and log polling drive Clawd's animations automatically
- 12 animated states — idle, thinking, typing, building, juggling, conducting, error, happy, notification, sweeping, carrying, sleeping
- Eye tracking — Clawd follows your cursor in idle state, with body lean and shadow stretch
- Sleep sequence — yawning, dozing, collapsing, sleeping after 60s idle; mouse movement triggers a startled wake-up animation
- Click reactions — double-click for a poke, 4 clicks for a flail
- Drag from any state — grab Clawd anytime (Pointer Capture prevents fast-flick drops), release to resume
- Mini mode — drag to right edge or right-click "Mini Mode"; Clawd hides at screen edge with peek-on-hover, mini alerts/celebrations, and parabolic jump transitions
Permission Bubble
- In-app permission review — when Claude Code requests tool permissions, Clawd pops a floating bubble card instead of waiting in the terminal
- Allow / Deny / Suggestions — one-click approve, reject, or apply permission rules (e.g. "Always allow Read")
- Global hotkeys —
Ctrl+Shift+Yto Allow,Ctrl+Shift+Nto Deny the latest permission bubble (only registered while bubbles are visible) - Stacking layout — multiple permission requests stack upward from the bottom-right corner
- Auto-dismiss — if you answer in the terminal first, the bubble disappears automatically
- Per-agent toggle — open
Settings…→Agents→Claude Codeand turn offShow pop-up bubblesto keep permission prompts in Claude Code's own terminal
Session Intelligence
- Multi-session tracking — sessions across all agents resolve to the highest-priority state
- Subagent awareness — juggling for 1 subagent, conducting for 2+
- Terminal focus — right-click Clawd → Sessions menu to jump to a specific session's terminal window; notification/attention states auto-focus the relevant terminal
- Process liveness detection — detects crashed/exited agent processes (Claude Code, Codex, Copilot) and cleans up orphan sessions
- Startup recovery — if Clawd restarts while any agent is running, it stays awake instead of falling asleep
System
- Click-through — transparent areas pass clicks to windows below; only Clawd's body is interactive
- Position memory — Clawd remembers where you left it across restarts (including mini mode)
- Single instance lock — prevents duplicate Clawd windows
- Auto-start — Claude Code's SessionStart hook can launch Clawd automatically if it's not running
- Do Not Disturb — right-click or tray menu to enter sleep mode; all hook events are silenced until you wake Clawd. Permission bubbles are suppressed during DND — opencode falls back to its built-in TUI prompt, and Claude Code will handle permissions automatically
- Sound effects — short audio cues on task completion and permission requests (toggle via right-click menu; 10s cooldown, auto-muted during DND)
- System tray — resize (S/M/L), DND mode, language switch, auto-start, check for updates
- i18n — English, Chinese, and Korean UI; switch via right-click menu or tray
- Auto-update — checks GitHub releases; Windows installs NSIS updates on quit, macOS/Linux
git pull+ restart when running from a cloned repo
Animations
![]() Idle |
![]() Thinking |
![]() Typing |
![]() Building |
![]() Juggling |
![]() Conducting |
![]() Error |
![]() Happy |
![]() Notification |
![]() Sweeping |
![]() Carrying |
![]() Sleeping |
![]() Calico Idle |
![]() Calico Thinking |
![]() Calico Typing |
![]() Calico Building |
![]() Calico Juggling |
![]() Calico Conducting |
Full event-to-state mapping, mini mode, and click reactions: docs/guides/state-mapping.md
Quick Start
# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/rullerzhou-afk/clawd-on-desk.git
cd clawd-on-desk
# Install dependencies
npm install
# Start Clawd (auto-registers Claude Code hooks on launch)
npm start
Claude Code and Codex CLI work out of the box. Other agents (Copilot, Kiro, etc.) need one-time setup. Also covers remote SSH, WSL, and platform-specific notes (macOS / Linux): docs/guides/setup-guide.md
For the official Codex + WSL status, Clawd's current implementation boundary, and why this is easy to misread, see: docs/guides/codex-wsl-clarification.md
Known Limitations
Some agents have feature gaps (no permission bubble, polling latency, no terminal focus). See the full table: docs/guides/known-limitations.md
Custom Themes
Clawd supports custom themes — replace the default crab with your own character and animations.
Quick start:
- Scaffold a theme:
No argument also works: it creates the next availablenode scripts/create-theme.js my-theme # or npm run create-theme -- my-thememy-themescaffold in your user themes directory. - Edit
theme.jsonand create your assets (SVG, GIF, APNG, WebP, PNG, JPG, or JPEG) - Restart Clawd or open
Settings…→Theme→ select your theme
Minimum viable theme: 1 SVG (idle with eye tracking) + 7 GIF/APNG files (thinking, working, error, happy, notification, sleeping, waking). Eye tracking can be disabled to use any format for all states.
Validate your theme before distributing:
node scripts/validate-theme.js path/to/your-theme
Theme cards in Settings… → Theme now expose capability badges such as Tracked idle, Static theme, Mini, Direct sleep, and No reactions, so users can tell what a theme supports before switching.
See docs/guides/guide-theme-creation.md for the full creation guide with tiered paths (beginner → advanced), theme.json field reference, and asset guidelines.
Third-party SVG files are automatically sanitized for security.
Roadmap
Some things we'd like to explore in the future:
- Codex terminal focus via process tree lookup from
codex.exePID - Auto-registration of Copilot CLI hooks (like we do for Claude Code)
- Theme registry and in-app download
- Hook uninstall script for clean app removal
Contributing
Clawd on Desk is a community-driven project. Bug reports, feature ideas, and pull requests are all welcome — open an issue to discuss or submit a PR directly.
Contributors
Thanks to everyone who has helped make Clawd better:
Acknowledgments
- Clawd pixel art reference from clawd-tank by @marciogranzotto
- Shared on LINUX DO community
License
Source code is licensed under the MIT License.
Artwork (assets/) is NOT covered by MIT. All rights reserved by their respective copyright holders. See assets/LICENSE for details.
- Clawd character is the property of Anthropic. This is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic.
- Calico cat (三花猫) artwork by 鹿鹿 (@rullerzhou-afk). All rights reserved.
- Third-party contributions: copyright retained by respective artists.
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