clawd-actor

A Claude Code mod: while Claude works, Clawd walks onto a little stage above the prompt and acts out what is going on — the spinner's -ing word (Sautéing, Pondering, Herding…) and whatever tool is running right now.

Eight scenes at the real frame rate, each cut to a few seconds (a real turn changes scene every 30 s). Every frame is the mod's own output, rendered by tools/.

What it does

• Acts out the spinner word. 26 scenes, matched by word stem, so Flambéing cooks and Dilly-dallying strolls. A word it does not know falls back to what the turn is doing (typing for tool use, talking while responding, thinking otherwise).
• Acts out the running tool. Bash types, Read/Grep/Glob think, Edit/Write sketch, Agent herds sheep, Web* checks the weather, TodoWrite/Skill juggles, MCP tools cast spells, anything else is hammered at the forge. When the tool returns, the show goes on.
• Changes scene every 30 seconds on long turns, in an order shuffled per turn, never the same scene twice in a row.
• Wanders the stage. Clawd strolls left and right with its props, swinging arms and legs, hopping at each turn; the stage follows the terminal width (up to 60 columns).
• Leaves when the turn ends, and draws nothing while idle (the frame timer only redraws during a turn).

| Scene | Spinner words (some of them) | | --- | --- | | think | Pondering, Musing, Clauding, Noodling, Ruminating | | cook / bake / brew | Sautéing, Simmering, Whisking / Baking, Kneading / Brewing, Percolating | | walk / run / moonwalk | Moseying, Wandering / Scampering, Galloping / Moonwalking | | herd | Herding, Wrangling, Mustering | | spin | Spinning, Churning, Reticulating, Combobulating | | magic / levitate | Conjuring, Manifesting, Transmuting / Levitating, Hyperspacing | | hatch / grow | Hatching, Incubating / Sprouting, Germinating | | forge / compute | Forging, Crafting, Creating / Computing, Crunching, Synthesizing | | dance / juggle / honk | Vibing, Grooving, Boogieing / Juggling / Honking, Booping | | sketch / weather / thunder | Sketching, Doodling / Misting, Billowing / Thundering | | dig / flow | Burrowing, Spelunking / Flowing, Undulating |

Install

Requires a Claude Code build with function-hook mods (claude plugin validate knows hooks.json modules). Developed and tested on Claude Code 2.1.289.

From this repository as a marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add BrianHuang813/clawd-actor
/plugin install clawd-actor@clawd-actor
/reload-plugins

Or straight from a clone, for one session:

git clone https://github.com/BrianHuang813/clawd-actor
claude --plugin-dir ./clawd-actor

Plays well with other band mods

The stage is drawn in the AbovePrompt band. The hook always calls next(e) and stacks what the mods beneath it draw under the stage, so other band mods keep showing. A band mod that answers without calling next(e) hides everything beneath it — if Clawd never shows up, look for one.

How it works

• ui.render on Spinner only observes: it remembers the word and mode and lets the engine draw the spinner as usual.
• tool.call notes the tool in flight and forgets it when the call returns.
• One timer, started in session.start, advances a frame counter in $.state every 140 ms while a turn runs; the band reads it, which subscribes it to redraws. A timer started inside a turn.start hook does not outlive that dispatch, which is why it lives in session.start.
• Whether to draw at all follows the band's own isWorking prop.
• hooks/scenes.ts is pure: a 4-row grid of cells, a scene per name, sceneAt() choosing the scene for a frame and frameRows() turning the grid into coloured runs.

Develop

claude plugin validate .
claude plugin test .

The tests check that every scene keeps the stage size at 30, 40 and 60 columns and moves Clawd about, that a turn opens on the spinner word and then rotates through every other scene, that a running tool takes over, and that the timer animates Clawd during a turn and lets go after it.

Block characters and symbols are drawn one cell wide; a terminal font that draws some of them wider may shift a frame.

To regenerate assets/demo.gif after changing a scene (Node 22+ and Python with Pillow):

node tools/frames.ts > frames.json      # the frames, straight from hooks/scenes.ts
python tools/render.py frames.json assets/demo.gif

tools/render.py uses DejaVu Sans Mono and draws block elements as exact rectangles; edit the font path at its top for your system.

Notes

Clawd is Claude Code's mascot; the sprite follows the one on Claude Code's welcome screen. This is a fan-made mod, not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic.

Showcase: I made Clawd act out whatever Claude is doing while it works. Clawd now cooks when the spinner says "Sautéing" – a little Claude Code mod

Feel free to take a look and make it more funny! https://github.com/BrianHuang813/clawd-actor Clawd 依 spinner 文案演戲