Tamamon - A desktop pet that grows as you code with Claude Code
by•
Tamamon is a macOS desktop pet that lives on top of your screen and grows the more you build with Claude Code.
What it does:
- 20 species to collect through a weekly gacha, each with its own evolved forms and quirks
- Feed it, play (ball, bubbles), and decorate its habitat
- Reacts to real time and weather — when it rains or night falls, your pet heads home to rest
- Nothing leaves your Mac. No account, no sign-in, no tracking, nothing uploaded.
Replies
Tamamon
@besslframework been running a handful of parallel claude code sessions across different repos most days. curious if tamamon pools that into one global growth counter or can tell projects apart. kind of hoping the answer is one pet for everything, not five pets side-eyeing me from different corners of the screen.
The "grows from local Claude Code token activity, nothing leaves the Mac" framing is what keeps this charming instead of turning into a productivity guilt-meter. Since there's no account or sync, what happens to a collection I've spent weeks on if I switch Macs or reinstall — is there a local backup/export, or does the gacha roster start over? I'd happily leave it running all day if the evolved species carry across machines.
Tamamon
@leo404 Really appreciate this — "productivity guilt-meter" is exactly the trap I was trying to avoid. Quick update: you asked, and it just shipped. As of v0.4.8 there's one-click Export / Import in the tray menu — save your whole collection to a file and load it on another Mac. Fully local, no account, and your current collection is backed up automatically before any import, so nothing is ever lost.
On the same Mac it was already safe (the save lives in ~/.config, separate from the app). Leave it running — I'd love that.
Turnaround from question to shipped export is genuinely wild. Does the export carry the evolution progress and streak history too, or just the current species roster? Wondering if a restored collection picks up where it left off or resets the growth clock.
Tamamon
@leo404 Great question. It carries the full state, not just the roster — every creature keeps its stage, its evolved form, and the care history (the karma that decides how it grows). So a restored collection picks up exactly where it left off; nothing resets. It even preserves your weekly-draw timing, so re-importing can't reset the gacha clock. Your evolved companions travel intact.
launched my own product this week and spent the whole time staring at analytics dashboards, so a pet that just vibes next to the work instead of measuring me is weirdly exactly what I needed lol
the "heads home when it rains" detail is what sold me. that's not a feature, that's a personality
Tamamon
@yarslav "That's not a feature, that's a personality" might be my favorite thing anyone's said about it. I had the same staring-at-dashboards fatigue, which is why it measures nothing and just keeps you company. Congrats on your own launch this week.
Congrats on the launch! 🚀
This is such a fun idea. I like that Tamamon makes coding feel a little more playful without turning into another productivity dashboard or streak-pressure tool.
The local-only approach is also a big plus. Curious if you plan to support backup/export later so people can keep their pets and evolved species when switching Macs.
Tamamon
@prashant_patil14 Thank you. And good timing — it just shipped: v0.4.8 adds one-click Export / Import of your whole collection, so your pets and evolved species come with you when you switch Macs. Fully local, no account, with an automatic backup before every import.
Foyer
The Claude Code hook is clever because it ties the pet's state to something that actually varies across sessions, not just a timer or a step counter. Curious what signals Tamamon is actually reading. Is it token usage, task completions, session length, or something more granular like whether the agent succeeded or had to retry? The difference matters because a pet that grows when you grind through a painful debugging session feels earned, but one that just tracks raw activity is basically a Tamagotchi skinned over a pomodoro timer.
Tamamon
@fberrez1 Great question, and you've hit the exact tension I kept thinking about. Right now the growth follows your coding activity over time — the weekly volume moves it from egg to baby to adult to evolved. A separate care layer decides the final form: look after it and it grows into a radiant version, neglect or overfeed it and it darkens. What it doesn't do yet is tell a hard-won debugging grind apart from raw activity. Honestly, growth you earn by pushing through a painful session is a direction I'd love to explore. It all reads locally, nothing uploaded.
@fberrez1 @besslframework the earned-vs-raw-activity question is the interesting one. i hook into claude code's own events for other automation (pre-push gates, stale-state checks) and the signal that's lready sitting there for a "hard session" is compaction count — a session that trips context compaction a few times reads as a longer grind than one that finishes in one pass, independent of raw token volume. probably cheaper to read than scoring task success/retry directly.
Love that this grows from my actual Claude Code activity instead of being one more dashboard to check. The fully local, no sign in part is a nice bonus. Does it react in the moment during a long build, or is it more of a daily and weekly thing? congrats on shipping
Tamamon
@i_sanjay_gautam Thanks Sanjay! A bit of both. In the moment, a little heads-up panel shows today’s and this week’s coding activity plus live CPU/memory, and your pet perks up and waves when a Claude Code session is waiting on your input — so during a long build you can glance over and see it’s along for the ride. Over time it hatches, grows, and evolves from your accumulated activity, with a new species to collect each week. All from local activity, nothing leaving the Mac.
Mine will evolve faster than a caterpie on a rare candy diet!
Tamamon
@real_digidavid Rare-candy speedrun energy, I respect it. Just don't overfeed it or it'll sulk — that's an actual mechanic.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
The same should be done for people who code without AI, so they will be motivated to work on their own code more organically :)
Tamamon
@busmark_w_nika Love that — a version that grows from your own commits or activity regardless of AI is a genuinely nice idea. I'll keep it in mind. Thanks for the thought.
The detail about it reacting to real weather and heading home when it rains is such a charming touch, makes the little guy feel alive without any data leaving the machine.
Tamamon
@sudenureliqx6g "Feels alive without any data leaving the machine" is exactly the line I was trying to walk. Thank you, that means a lot.
A desktop pet that evolves the more I code is a fun little motivator, the weather thing actually made me smile when it wandered off at dusk.
Tamamon
@baharws54 Thank you. The dusk wander is one of my favorite little details too — it heads home and settles in as it gets late. Glad it made you smile.