Maximum Productivity - Claude Games

Things absolutely no one asked for:

"How do you destroy all the productivity AI just gave you?

I got you.

Maximum Productivity is a VS Code extension that lets you play games while Claude cooks. 🎮🤖

Your AI stays productive. You don't have to.

Here's the situation: Claude Code is in there refactoring your auth middleware, writing your tests, running your build — and you're watching a spinner. Sitting there. Idle in front of the most productive coworker you've ever had. This extension fixes the real problem: the moment Claude starts working, a Sudoku slides in beside your editor. The moment Claude's done, it politely steps aside. Next wait, your puzzle is exactly where you left it — even after restarting VS Code. Nobody will ever know.

(The git history will know. Claude wrote it.)

Ships with a full-featured Sudoku. The framework is modular, so more ways to not work are one small module away.

Quick start (three steps, then never work again)

1. Install the extension. You've done harder things. Barely.
2. Click 🎮 Claude Games in the status bar — or run Claude Games: Open — whenever you feel productivity coming on.
3. For full autopilot, run Claude Games: Enable Claude Auto-Open (also offered on first launch). From then on the game opens itself whenever Claude starts working, and a "Claude is ready" banner appears the moment your presence is required again.

Nothing ever closes on its own — finish your move like the professional you are. Every move auto-saves.

Pausing auto-open (for meetings, screen shares, and other performances of productivity)

Sometimes someone is looking at your screen. One click handles it:

• In the game panel's top bar, click ▶ Auto-open: on — it flips to ⏸ Auto-open: off and the panel stops appearing.
• Or run Claude Games: Pause Auto-Open (until next open) from the command palette.
• While paused, the status bar shows 🎮 Claude Games ⏸. Subtle. Deniable.
• Resuming is automatic: when the coast is clear and you open the games yourself (status bar click or Claude Games: Open), auto-open re-arms itself. No settings to dig through.

Want it off forever? That's the claudeGames.autoOpen setting. Want the hooks gone entirely? Claude Games: Disable Claude Auto-Open. We don't judge. (We judge a little.)

How it knows Claude is cooking

There's no official busy/idle API in the Claude Code extension, so Claude Games uses Claude Code hooks — the officially supported integration point, used responsibly, which is ironic given everything else about this extension. Enabling the integration merges these hooks into ~/.claude/settings.json (timestamped backup first; your existing hooks are untouched):

Each hook runs resources/hook.js (plain Node, zero dependencies), which writes a tiny state file to ~/.claude/waiting-games/sessions/<session_id>.json. The extension watches that folder and reacts. If you Esc-interrupt Claude (Stop never fires then), a stale timeout (default 3 minutes) figures it out on its own.

Privacy: everything is local. No telemetry, no network requests, no analytics dashboard where we track how bad you are at Sudoku. The only files touched: ~/.claude/settings.json (on explicit enable/disable only), the session files above, and your game saves in ~/.claude/waiting-games/saves/. Disabling removes exactly our hook entries and nothing else.

Multiple sessions and windows (for the overachievers)

Running several Claudes in parallel so you can be even more not-busy? Fully supported:

• Several sessions, one project: the status bar shows the count (⟳ 2 Claude sessions). When one finishes while the others grind on, you get a status-bar flash and an in-game banner ("A Claude session is ready for you — 1 still running"). The big "Claude is ready" banner is reserved for the last one. Esc-interrupted sessions age out quietly — no false alarms.
• Several windows: each window only reacts to Claude working in its project. Game saves are shared machine-wide with newest-wins protection, so two windows can't clobber each other's puzzle. Your Sudoku progress is safer than most production databases.

The Sudoku (it's actually good)

• Three difficulties (Easy / Medium / Hard). Every puzzle has exactly one solution — mathematically guaranteed, which is more than can be said for your sprint planning.
• Pencil notes, unlimited undo, optional error highlighting, and a timer that only counts while you actually play. Paused time doesn't count against you. Unlike standup.
• Keyboard-first: arrows / hjkl move · 1–9 fill · N notes mode · Backspace erase · U or Ctrl/Cmd+Z undo.
• Auto-saves every move; resumes across waiting phases and VS Code restarts.

Commands

Settings

Adding a new game (contribute to the problem)

Each game is one self-contained module — persistence, the picker card, pause/resume on Claude state changes, and corrupt-save recovery are all handled by the framework. You write the fun part:

// src/webview/games/mygame.ts
import { GameDefinition, GameModule } from '../framework/types';

class MyGame implements GameModule {
  mount(container, ctx) { /* build DOM; call ctx.save(state) on every move */ }
  setState(raw) { /* restore; throw on invalid input */ }
  getState() { return { version: 1, state: /* serializable */, updatedAt: Date.now() }; }
  pause() { /* stop timers */ }
  resume() {}
  newGame() {}
  destroy() {}
}

export const myGameDefinition: GameDefinition = {
  manifest: { id: 'mygame', title: 'My Game', icon: '🕹️', description: '…' },
  create: () => new MyGame(),
};

Then add one line to src/webview/games.ts. That's it. Minesweeper PRs welcome.

Development

Yes, this extension was itself built by Claude Code. What was the author doing while Claude built it? Exactly.

npm install
npm run typecheck   # tsc --noEmit
npm test            # vitest (engine, hook merge, state aggregation, save store)
npm run build       # esbuild → dist/

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host. See docs/PUBLISHING.md for the full marketplace submission guide.

Manual smoke checklist

• [ ] Claude Games: Open shows the picker; Sudoku plays with keyboard and mouse
• [ ] Enable integration → submit a Claude Code prompt → panel auto-opens without stealing focus
• [ ] Claude finishes → banner + status bar "Claude ready"; timer pauses
• [ ] Toggle Auto-open: off → next prompt does not open the panel; status bar shows ⏸; opening manually re-arms it
• [ ] Reload VS Code → resume puts you back in the same puzzle with history intact
• [ ] Switch color theme → board remains legible
• [ ] Disable integration → hook entries removed from ~/.claude/settings.json, foreign hooks untouched

License

MIT — free, as in "your afternoon, once Claude takes over".