A virtual pet that lives inside your VS Code editor — reacts to your typing, errors, idle time, and even the hour of night.
What is PetCode?
PetCode is a tiny animated dog or cat that sits at the end of your cursor line and reacts to everything you do in real time. Type a lot and it runs happily alongside you. Leave it alone and it wanders around, fidgets, and eventually falls asleep. Rack up errors and it gets worried — then scared. Fix them all and it celebrates with a bark.
It lives entirely inside the editor as a text decoration — no panels, no sidebars, no popups.
Features
🐕🐱 Dog or cat — switch your companion any time from the settings menu
🏃 Follows your cursor — moves line by line as you navigate
✨ Happy running — gets excited when you type for 4+ seconds straight
😱 Scared of errors — reacts as your error count climbs
🎉 Barks when errors clear — celebrates when you fix all the bugs
💤 Falls asleep — naps after ~25 seconds of inactivity
🌙 Night mode — switches to a calm idle between 4–6 AM
🐾 Wanders & hops — starts exploring your file when bored
🔇 Toggle on/off — hide when you need to focus
🔕 Auto-hides during debug sessions — stays out of the way when you're debugging
Commands
Command
Keybinding
Description
PetCode: Make your pet bark
Ctrl+Alt+B / Cmd+Alt+B
Triggers a bark animation
PetCode: Toggle pet visibility
—
Show or hide the pet
PetCode: Open settings
Click the status bar item
Opens the settings menu
Pet States
State
What triggers it
Running
Actively typing
Happy running
Typing for 4+ seconds straight
Idle
6 seconds of no activity
Fidgeting
8 seconds idle — does a little hop
Wandering
12 seconds idle — walks along the line
Tired
22 seconds idle — droops before sleeping
Sleeping
25 seconds idle — fully asleep
Worried
2+ errors in the active file
Scared
5+ errors in the active file
Barking
Errors cleared, or Ctrl+Alt+B
Night idle
Between 4–6 AM
Jumping
Hops during wander / fidget animations
Settings Menu
Click the 🐾 PetCode item in your status bar to open the quick-pick menu. From there you can:
Show or hide the pet
Switch between dog and cat
Trigger a bark
Installation
Search for PetCode in the Extensions panel (Ctrl+Shift+X) and click Install, or install from the marketplace page.
