Feature Request: Customizable companions (let us swap Gristle for a Thronglet)

Status Fixed / completed

Maintainer reply None cached

Activity 4 comments · opened Apr 14, 2026 · closed Apr 14, 2026

The Ask

Let users choose or customize their Claude Code companion! Currently, Gristle the duck is the only option — and while she's lovely, some of us want... more.

Why

Black Mirror Season 7 introduced Thronglets — needy little digital creatures that react to what you're doing. Imagine a companion that:

Gets visibly excited when your tests pass 🎉
Looks disappointed when you git reset --hard 😢
Falls asleep during long builds 💤
Panics when you're editing production configs 😱

The companion slot in the UI is already there — why not make it extensible?

Proposed Ideas

Built-in companion gallery — A few official companions to choose from (Gristle stays as the default, of course)
Community companions — Let plugin authors create custom companions with ASCII art + personality scripts
Reactive companions — Companions that respond to events (test results, errors, git operations)
Companion API — Hooks like onToolCall, onError, onIdle that let companions react

The Dream

A plugin in ~/.claude/plugins/ that defines:

companion:
  name: "Thronglet"
  idle: "<(°▽°)>"
  happy: "<(♥‿♥)>"
  sad: "<(;_;)>"
  panic: "<(⊙_⊙)>"

Current State

Gristle is hardcoded with no settings to change or customize the companion
No companion-related config in settings.json
The companion feature is delightful — it just needs a door for customization

Thanks for making coding feel a little less lonely. Now let us choose our emotional support creature. 🦆➡️👾

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

idan-ben-ami · 6 months ago

Additional thought: Configuration-based companions

It would be great if companions could be defined via the existing settings system, e.g. in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "companion": {
    "type": "thronglet",
    "personality": "anxious",
    "reactivity": "high"
  }
}

Or even better — as part of the plugin plugin.json spec:

{
  "name": "thronglet-companion",
  "companions": [{
    "name": "Thronglet",
    "ascii": {
      "idle": "<(°▽°)>",
      "happy": "<(♥‿♥)>",
      "thinking": "<(•_•)>",
      "error": "<(⊙_⊙)>"
    },
    "reactions": {
      "onTestPass": "happy",
      "onTestFail": "error",
      "onIdle": "idle"
    }
  }]
}

This would fit naturally into the plugin ecosystem and let the community go wild. 🎨

github-actions[bot] · 6 months ago

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

idan-ben-ami · 6 months ago

Closing this — just saw that the companion was an April Fools feature that's already been removed. Great while it lasted! 🦆

github-actions[bot] · 5 months ago

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