claudemon

The idea

The walking happens while Claude does, not the moment you press enter: a prompt buys you the steps and the turn takes them, so anything that jumps out does it with the grass already moving. So is the waiting — every twenty seconds Claude spends working is another step, because that is the half of the session you actually have free.

One at a time, and only for half a minute: a Pokemon that appears while you are busy wanders off if you leave it there, so a long session never leaves a queue of battles waiting for you.

The original 151. Fully local — no account, no backend, nothing about you leaving the machine.

Screens

The home screen: an activity line reading Claude is working, Read, 3m09s, someone standing in a band of grass, and a team of five listed below — **Home** — waiting, which is most of it. The walk only moves while Claude does, so you can tell from across the desk without reading anything.

A battle: a wild Venonat facing your Squirtle, both drawn as pixel sprites, with health bars and a FIGHT / BAG / POKÉMON / RUN menu — **Battle** — critical hits, the type chart, status conditions, PP. A ◓ by the foe's name means it is already in your Pokédex.

The Pokédex: the list of all 151 down the left with seen and caught markers, and Charmander on the right with its base stats, catch rate and what it evolves into — **Pokédex** — seen and caught are tracked apart, and the stats fill in for the ones you caught.

The team screen: five Pokémon listed on the left, and Ditto on the right with its health, experience, stats and moves — **Team** — details, moves, experience, `enter` to change your lead, and the box behind it.

Install

Typed inside Claude Code. Nothing to clone.

Add the marketplace and install the plugin — that puts the hooks that make Pokemon appear in place.
```
/plugin marketplace add zamarrowski/claudemon
/plugin install claudemon@claudemon
```
Restart Claude Code. It only picks up a plugin's commands and hooks at startup, so until you restart, the next line does not exist yet.
Run the setup. It installs the claudemon command, the status line and the sprites, printing a line per step and saying so if one of them did not work.
```
/claudemon-setup
```
Restart Claude Code once more, so the new status line loads.
In a second terminal tab, run claudemon. It asks for a name and a starter the first time, and after that it sits there waiting.
```
claudemon
```
BULBASAUR

CHARMANDER

SQUIRTLE

Then send a longish prompt in the Claude tab and watch the status line.

What you need first

Requirement	How to check
Claude Code	You are already in it
Node.js 18+	`node --version`. The game and the hooks run on it, and Claude Code ships as its own binary so it does not bring one. Nothing else to install — no dependencies, no build step
A truecolor terminal	iTerm2, Ghostty, WezTerm, Kitty, Alacritty, VS Code's terminal and macOS Terminal are all fine

From a clone instead

For hacking on it, a clone works the same way and takes precedence over the installed copy.

git clone https://github.com/zamarrowski/claudemon
cd claudemon
node tools/install.mjs

The 151 Pokemon ship with the plugin, so the only thing the install downloads is the sprites — 1.2 MB, a few seconds. Updating and uninstalling are in the README.

What's in it

The original 151, with real base stats, types, catch rates and Red/Blue movesets.
Battles with critical hits, the type chart, status conditions, PP, one-hit KOs, fleeing and switching Pokemon mid-fight.
Catching, where weakening and status genuinely help.
Levelling, learning moves, and evolution by level or by stone.
A Pokédex tracking seen and caught separately, a team screen with the box behind it, and a shop.
A line telling you whether Claude is working, which tool it is on and for how long — and a bell when it finishes or gets stuck on a permission prompt, so the game tab is somewhere you can actually sit and wait.
A patch of grass with someone walking through it, who only walks while Claude is working. Something you can catch out of the corner of your eye.
Blips as you move through the menus, and a theme that plays from the first frame of a battle to the last — off in one place if you would rather work in silence.

Controls

Arrow keys move, enter confirms, esc goes back, q quits. Any key advances a battle message. That is the whole scheme — it is the same everywhere.