usagi-code

usagi-code opens a pane where Usagi or Chiikawa, from Nagano’s Chiikawa, acts out what Claude is doing. The character taps at a keyboard while Claude works, shows a thinking bubble between steps and stands by when it is your turn. Beside the stage, the pane tracks your latest request, the subagents Claude spawns and every step of the turn. Nothing goes to the model, so it costs no tokens.

It is SungsooKwon’s port of mascot-studio by clockendbader, with the original Clawd mascot redrawn as the two characters. The README calls the pixel art fan-made and credits the characters to their creator, which is why this page shows a generic cover instead of the author’s screenshots.

What it does

• Acts out the turn. While Claude thinks or runs a tool, the character taps a keyboard one paw at a time, and the pressed key flashes. Thinking adds a bubble that cycles thinking..., shortened to dots at 18 rows and below. When the turn ends, it stands still with open eyes.
• Dozes off. After a quiet minute it falls asleep where it stands: closed eyes, a slow breath, a snot bubble that swells and pops, and z’s drifting up. It wakes the moment Claude starts again.
• Shows the order. The first line of your latest prompt heads a small tree. Each subagent Claude spawns hangs from it with its type, its task, a mark for running, done or failed, and the tool and target it is on now.
• Chains the steps. One line joins the turn’s tool calls with arrows, each with an icon and the file name or a shortened target, failures in red. A progress line counts steps, done and failed, times the current step and counts running subagents. A bar on top shows how close the context is to auto-compact.
• Calls you over. A permission prompt or a question from Claude opens an instant-message window over the stage, naming the tool and what it wants to run. Until you answer, the plugin’s status line says the character is waiting on you. A failed tool opens a small dialog with its first error line and an OK button; it closes on its own after eight seconds.
• Warns about limits. The pane’s status bar shows context and 5-hour usage. When context, the 5-hour limit or the weekly limit reaches 80 percent, the status line warns you, suggests /compact for context and gives the reset time for the limits.
• Wears a 2010s skin. Windows 7, Mac OS X or Ubuntu. Each changes the title bar and its buttons, the dialogs and the status bar; the stage stays a meadow.
• Resizes. The ▲ and ▼ buttons in the status bar, or /usagi +, /usagi - and /usagi size <n>, set the stage from 4 to 44 rows, and the size carries over to the next session. Outside the fullscreen layout, clicks do not reach the buttons, so use the commands. Both characters have hand-drawn art at 22 (the default), 20, 18, 14 and 8 rows; other sizes shrink the 22-row art and can drop pixels, so the eyes may look off.

If you only want an animal on the spinner line rather than a whole pane, cat-spinner does that.

Install

Needs Claude Code 2.1.287 or later and a terminal.

claude plugin marketplace add SungsooKwon/claude-mods-custom-box
claude plugin install usagi-code@claude-mods-custom-box

The pane opens with Usagi when your next session starts. /usagi or /chiikawa opens or closes it with that character on stage; if the other one is showing, it swaps them for the session. /usagi theme windows7 (or macos, ubuntu) changes the skin for the session, and the size and theme subcommands also work after /chiikawa. To keep a character or a skin, or to stop the pane opening on startup, use /plugin configure usagi-code.

Claude Code decides where the pane sits. In the default fullscreen layout, a terminal 110 columns or wider docks it to the right of the conversation, where the plugin asks for 46 columns; a narrower terminal puts it above the prompt. To keep it above the prompt, start with CLAUDE_CODE_NO_FLICKER=0 claude or run inside tmux.

How it works

The mod only watches. It never blocks or changes a tool call, and permission decisions stay with you.

• What it reads. From turn.start, the first line of each prompt you send, shown as the order; messages that start with <, such as notifications, are skipped. From tool.call, the tool’s name, the first line of the path, pattern, URL, query, command or description it works on, and the first line of an error or a denial. From agent.spawn, each subagent’s type and task. From classic.PermissionRequest and classic.Notification, the tool and target awaiting approval, or the notification text. Escape sequences and control characters are stripped before anything is drawn.
• What it sends. Nothing. It makes no network calls, starts no processes and never calls the model, so it uses no tokens. Usage figures come from Claude Code itself, through session.measure and a usage summary that the code describes as a local estimate with no API request.
• What it keeps. The stage size, in the plugin’s store, and your three settings (open on startup, theme, character), in Claude Code’s plugin config. Everything else, from the order to the step list, lives only in the running session.

Limitations

• Terminal only. On any other surface the pane shows a one-line note instead of the stage.
• The pane’s labels, such as the progress line and the step states, are in Korean for now. Commands, popups and the status line are in English.
• In version 0.2.0 the auto theme always picks the Ubuntu look: the code does not check your operating system, although the README says auto follows it. Choose Windows 7 or Mac OS X in /plugin configure usagi-code or with /usagi theme.