Animated pond pane that levels up a consulting career as Claude works; open with /pond

Thirteen mods I wrote for Claude Code in October 2026, the week mods were announced. A mod is a plugin of TypeScript hooks that runs inside Claude Code: it can draw panes and bands in the terminal, add slash commands, give Claude new tools, and block or react to tool calls. I built these to see how far the system goes, and a few of them I now use every day.
The one I use most is interview-coach: it asks a placement interview question aloud, records my spoken answer, transcribes it on the Mac with Whisper, and scores pace, filler words and structure against my own CV stories.
| Mod | How you use it | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| interview-coach | /coach | Spoken mock interview in a side pane. Asks a question aloud, records from the mic, transcribes locally (Whisper large-v3-turbo via whisper.cpp), then shows speaking time against the target, words per minute, filler words, time spent on each step of the answer framework, and two stronger example answers drawn from your profile. Keeps a WPM trend across sessions. |
| nihongo | /nihongo | Japanese tutor pane: kana drill that weights look-alike pairs and brings misses back sooner, 44 N5 word cards, and a sentence builder where Claude Haiku sets a line from the week's grammar and corrects your kana answer. A word band above the prompt shows a new word each turn. |
| joka-pond | /pond | Animated ASCII pond that earns XP for every tool Claude uses and climbs a consulting ladder from Intern to Managing Partner. Storms when a tool fails, keeps a daily streak. |
| aurora | /visuals, /aurora | Truecolor pixel art: an aurora band above the prompt whose colours follow the time of day, plus a gallery (plasma, ocean sunset, warp, a 4-4-6 breathing lotus). |
| avatar | /buddy | A pixel companion docked beside the chat. Its mood follows Claude: thinking, happy after a reply, worried after a failure, sleepy after midnight. |
| chart | Claude calls it | Gives Claude a tool that draws bar, line, area and donut charts inline in the chat, with axes, labels and legends. |
| heatmap | Claude calls it | Inline truecolor heatmaps with heat, green and diverging palettes. |
| diagram | Claude calls it | Flowcharts drawn in the terminal: coloured boxes by role, laid out top to bottom with labelled arrows. |
| animate | Claude calls it | Plays short truecolor animations (fireworks, rain, aurora and others) inside a chat row at about 15 fps. |
| pixel | Claude calls it | Draws a pixel-art image in the chat from a JSON grid of colours. |
| change-ledger | /changes | Pane listing every file Claude created or edited this session. |
| em-dash-guard | automatic | Blocks any write or edit that adds an em dash, my house style for documents. |
| hello-mod | /hi | Starter mod: an instant reply with no model call, a guard that blocks rm -rf, and a toast at the end of each turn. |
statusline/statusline-command.sh is my status line: model, effort, context used, 5-hour and weekly usage with time left, folder and git branch, colour-coded green, yellow and red.
claude --plugin-dir ./mods/chart
Pass --plugin-dir once per mod you want. claude plugin validate ./mods/chart checks a mod before loading it.
interview-coach needs ffmpeg, whisper-cpp (brew install ffmpeg whisper-cpp) and a Whisper model file. Set the paths at the top of mods/interview-coach/hooks/register.tsx, and copy profile.example.md to the profile path with your own experiences.
$ context object can't be stored or passed around. Long-running work has to start from a worker in session.start; buttons only queue jobs for it.$.ui.blit instead.session.start becomes callable only from the next prompt.-progress flag must come before -i, or progress output never arrives.hooks/register.tsx 183 lines1import { atom, read, update } from 'claude-code'
2import type { Register } from 'claude-code'
3
4import type { Pond } from '../types'
5
6const PANE = 'joka-pond'
7const frame = atom({ plugin: 'joka-pond', key: 'frame' } as const, 0)
8const pond = atom({ plugin: 'joka-pond', key: 'pond' } as const, { xp: 0, streak: 0, stormUntil: 0, partyUntil: 0, log: [] })
9
10const LADDER = [
11 { at: 0, title: 'Intern' },
12 { at: 100, title: 'Analyst' },
13 { at: 300, title: 'Associate' },
14 { at: 700, title: 'Engagement Manager' },
15 { at: 1500, title: 'Principal' },
16 { at: 3000, title: 'Partner' },
17 { at: 6000, title: 'Managing Partner' },
18]
19const levelOf = (xp: number) => LADDER.reduce((lv, step, i) => (xp >= step.at ? i : lv), 0)
20
21const XP: Record<string, number> = { Write: 15, Edit: 10, Bash: 6, Agent: 20, WebSearch: 8, Read: 2, Grep: 2, Glob: 2 }
22
23// Small deterministic noise so the scene is stable between redraws of one frame
24const noise = (a: number, b: number) => {
25 const x = Math.sin(a * 12.9898 + b * 78.233) * 43758.5453
26 return x - Math.floor(x)
27}
28
29export const register: Register = on => {
30 let tick = 0
31
32 on('session.start', async ($, e, next) => {
33 await $.command.register({ name: 'pond', description: 'Open Joka Pond: your animated XP pond' })
34
35 // Load saved progress and update the daily streak
36 const saved = ((await $.store.get('pond')) as Partial<Pond> | undefined) ?? {}
37 const today = new Date(await $.clock.now()).toISOString().slice(0, 10)
38 const lastDay = ((await $.store.get('lastDay')) as string | undefined) ?? ''
39 const yesterday = new Date((await $.clock.now()) - 86400000).toISOString().slice(0, 10)
40 const streak = lastDay === today ? saved.streak ?? 1 : lastDay === yesterday ? (saved.streak ?? 0) + 1 : 1
41 await $.store.set('lastDay', today)
42 await update($, pond, () => ({ xp: saved.xp ?? 0, streak, stormUntil: 0, partyUntil: 0, log: [] }))
43
44 // The animation clock: 5 frames a second
45 $.clock.every(200, () => {
46 tick += 1
47 void update($, frame, () => tick)
48 })
49
50 return next(e)
51 })
52
53 on('command.run', { command: 'pond' }, async $ => {
54 await $.ui.open({ id: PANE, title: 'Joka Pond' })
55 const p = await read($, pond)
56 return { text: `Joka Pond opened. ${LADDER[levelOf(p.xp)]!.title}, ${p.xp} XP, ${p.streak}-day streak.` }
57 })
58
59 on('tool.call', async ($, e, next) => {
60 const ran = await next(e)
61 const failed = ran.deny !== undefined || ran.isError === true
62 const before = await read($, pond)
63 const tool = 'tool' in e ? String(e.tool) : 'tool'
64 const gain = failed ? -3 : XP[tool] ?? 3
65 const xp = Math.max(0, before.xp + gain)
66 const promoted = levelOf(xp) > levelOf(before.xp)
67 const entry = failed ? `⛈ ${tool} failed -3` : `+${gain} ${tool}`
68
69 const after: Pond = {
70 ...before,
71 xp,
72 stormUntil: failed ? tick + 15 : before.stormUntil,
73 partyUntil: promoted ? tick + 25 : before.partyUntil,
74 log: [entry, ...before.log].slice(0, 4),
75 }
76 await update($, pond, () => after)
77 await $.store.set('pond', after)
78
79 if (promoted) {
80 const title = LADDER[levelOf(xp)]!.title
81 $.ui.toast(`🎉 Promoted to ${title}!`)
82 void $.audio.speak(`Congratulations. You have been promoted to ${title}.`).catch(() => {})
83 }
84 return ran
85 })
86
87 on('ui.render', { component: 'Pane', requestId: PANE }, async ($, e) => {
88 const { Box, Text } = $.ui.resolve(e)
89 const f = await read($, frame)
90 const p = await read($, pond)
91 const W = Math.max(24, Math.min(70, (e.viewport?.columns ?? 50) - 2))
92 const lv = levelOf(p.xp)
93 const stormy = f < p.stormUntil
94 const party = f < p.partyUntil
95 const hour = new Date().getHours()
96 const night = hour >= 19 || hour < 6
97
98 // Sky: drifting stars or clouds, rain in a storm, confetti at a promotion
99 const sky = [0, 1].map(row =>
100 Array.from({ length: W }, (_, x) => {
101 if (party && noise(x + f, row) > 0.8) return ['*', '+', '·', '✦'][Math.floor(noise(x, f + row) * 4)]!
102 if (stormy) return noise(x + f * 2, row) > 0.7 ? '╱' : ' '
103 if (row === 0 && x === W - 6) return night ? '☾' : '☀'
104 if (night) return noise(x, row) > 0.93 ? (noise(x, f >> 2) > 0.5 ? '·' : '✧') : ' '
105 return noise(Math.floor((x + f / 3) / 6), row) > 0.85 ? '░' : ' '
106 }).join(''),
107 )
108 const skyColor = party ? 'magenta' : stormy ? 'gray' : night ? 'white' : 'yellow'
109
110 // Lotus line: one bloom per level, gently bobbing
111 const lotusRow = Array.from({ length: W }, (_, x) => {
112 const slot = Math.floor(W / (lv + 2))
113 const isLotus = x > 0 && x % slot === 0 && x / slot <= lv + 1
114 return isLotus ? ((f >> 2) % 2 === 0 ? '✿' : '❀') : ' '
115 }).join('')
116
117 // Water with fish: more fish as the career grows
118 const fishCount = Math.min(8, lv + 2)
119 const water = [0, 1, 2].map(row => {
120 const cells: string[] = Array.from({ length: W }, (_, x) => {
121 const wave = (x + f + row * 3) % 7
122 return row === 0 ? (wave < 2 ? '≈' : '~') : wave === 0 ? '~' : ' '
123 })
124 for (let i = 0; i < fishCount; i++) {
125 if (i % 3 !== row) continue
126 const speed = 1 + (i % 3)
127 const span = W + 6
128 const raw = (Math.floor((f * speed) / 2) + i * 13) % (span * 2)
129 const right = raw < span
130 const x = right ? raw - 3 : span * 2 - raw - 3
131 const fish = right ? '><>' : '<><'
132 for (let k = 0; k < 3; k++) if (x + k >= 0 && x + k < W) cells[x + k] = fish[k]!
133 if (noise(i, f >> 1) > 0.85 && row > 0 && x + 1 >= 0 && x + 1 < W) cells[x + 1] = 'o'
134 }
135 return cells.join('')
136 })
137
138 const cur = LADDER[lv]!
139 const nxt = LADDER[lv + 1]
140 const pct = nxt ? (p.xp - cur.at) / (nxt.at - cur.at) : 1
141 const barW = Math.max(10, W - 22)
142 const fill = Math.round(pct * barW)
143 const shimmer = (f >> 1) % Math.max(1, fill + 4)
144
145 return (
146 <Box flexDirection="column">
147 {sky.map((line, i) => <Text key={`sky-${i}`} color={skyColor}>{line}</Text>)}
148 <Text color="magenta">{lotusRow}</Text>
149 {water.map((line, i) => {
150 const base = stormy ? 'gray' : i === 0 ? 'cyan' : 'blue'
151 const fishColor = stormy ? 'gray' : 'yellow'
152 // group runs of fish and water characters so each run gets one colour
153 const runs: { text: string; isFish: boolean }[] = []
154 for (const ch of line) {
155 const isFish = ch === '>' || ch === '<'
156 const last = runs[runs.length - 1]
157 if (last && last.isFish === isFish) last.text += ch
158 else runs.push({ text: ch, isFish })
159 }
160 return (
161 <Text key={`w-${i}`}>
162 {runs.map((r, k) => <Text key={`r-${i}-${k}`} color={r.isFish ? fishColor : base}>{r.text}</Text>)}
163 </Text>
164 )
165 })}
166 <Text> </Text>
167 <Text>
168 <Text bold color={party ? 'magenta' : 'green'}>{party ? '🎉 ' : ''}{cur.title}</Text>
169 <Text dimColor> {p.xp} XP{nxt ? `, ${nxt.at - p.xp} to ${nxt.title}` : ', top of the firm'}</Text>
170 </Text>
171 <Text>
172 {'['}
173 {Array.from({ length: barW }, (_, i) =>
174 i < fill ? (i === shimmer ? '▓' : '█') : '░').join('')}
175 {']'} <Text dimColor>{Math.round(pct * 100)}%</Text>
176 </Text>
177 <Text dimColor>🔥 {p.streak}-day streak {stormy ? 'storm passing...' : party ? 'promotion party!' : night ? 'night shift' : 'calm waters'}</Text>
178 {p.log.map((l, i) => <Text key={`log-${i}`} color={l.startsWith('⛈') ? 'red' : 'green'} dimColor={i > 0}>{l}</Text>)}
179 </Box>
180 )
181 })
182}
183types/index.d.ts 14 lines1export type Pond = {
2 xp: number
3 streak: number
4 stormUntil: number
5 partyUntil: number
6 log: string[]
7}
8
9declare module 'claude-code' {
10 interface PluginState {
11 'joka-pond': { frame: number; pond: Pond }
12 }
13}
14