codotchi — VS Code extension

Grow and raise your personal virtual pet as a VS Code extension while you code.

Overview

codotchi is a VS Code extension that lets you raise a digital pet inspired by the original Tamagotchi. Your pet lives in a sidebar panel, reacts to your coding activity, and needs regular care to survive and evolve into its final form. Any support and feedback is much appreciated — see the Support section below!

Your pet is drawn from one of 7 sprite sets, with more to be added in the future, assigned to you at random when you start a new game.

Preview

Skippy the kangaroo — Codotchi in action

Features

Sidebar pet panel — pixel art pet with animated sprites, stat bars, and action buttons, all rendered in a dedicated sidebar webview
Classic Tamagotchi mechanics — hunger, happiness, discipline, energy, health, weight, and age stats, all decaying in real time
Full care system — feed meals and snacks, play mini-games, put pet to sleep, clean droppings, give medicine, scold and praise
Life cycle & evolution — egg → baby → child → teen → adult → senior, with the final character determined by how well you cared for your pet
Pet customization — name your pet, choose a pet type, and pick a color palette on first launch
Sickness & death — neglect your pet and it gets sick; leave it untreated and it dies
OpenCode integration — your pet lives in the terminal too; use /codotchi commands to care for it alongside your AI coding session, with shared state across VS Code, PyCharm, and OpenCode
Status bar integration — pet name and mood always visible in the VS Code status bar; click to open the sidebar
Persistent state — pet survives VS Code restarts; offline time is accounted for with capped stat decay
Configurable — customise font size, pet size, colours, idle thresholds, attention call behaviour, and more via Settings → Extensions → codotchi

Installation

See the GitHub repository for full installation instructions, pre-built releases, and the OpenCode integration download.

Using the extension

Once installed and VS Code has reloaded:

Click the icon in the activity bar (left sidebar) to open the Your Pet panel. Alternatively, run Codotchi: Open Pet Panel from the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P).
On first launch the New Codotchi setup screen appears:
- Enter a name (up to 16 characters).
- Choose a pet type — each has different stat decay rates.
- Choose a colour palette — affects the sprite's colour scheme.
- Click Hatch!
Your pet now lives in the sidebar. Care for it using the action buttons: Feed, Snack, Play, Pat, Sleep, Clean, Medicine, Praise, and Scold.
Your pet's state is saved automatically and restored the next time VS Code opens. Stat decay while VS Code is closed is capped at 60 % of each maximum so a long break won't instantly kill your pet.
Your pet's name and current mood are always visible in the status bar at the bottom of VS Code.

Actions

Action	What it does
Feed	Gives your pet a full meal. Restores a large chunk of hunger. Limited to 3 meals per wake cycle — overfeeding past that has no effect.
Snack	Gives a small treat. Boosts happiness instead of hunger, but adds more weight. More than 3 snacks in a row will make your pet sick.
Play	Opens the mini-game picker. Choose Left / Right, Higher or Lower, or Coin Flip. Winning gives +15–25 happiness; losing applies a −5 penalty. Costs 25 energy — your pet can't play if exhausted.
Pat	Gives your pet a gentle pat. Boosts happiness by +10. Costs 20 energy. Accessed via the Play menu (same overlay as the mini-games). Cannot be used while your pet is sleeping or exhausted.
Sleep	Puts your pet to sleep. Energy slowly regenerates while it sleeps and your pet cannot take any other actions. Wake it manually or wait for full energy.
Clean	Clears all droppings from the screen. Pets produce droppings roughly every 20 minutes. Leaving 3 or more uncleaned will make your pet sick.
Medicine	Treats sickness. Requires 3 doses to fully cure. Restores a small amount of health per dose. Use it as soon as your pet falls ill to prevent health loss.
Praise	Rewards good behaviour. Raises the discipline stat, which contributes to a better care score and a higher-tier evolution.
Scold	Corrects bad behaviour. Also raises discipline. Use it when your pet misbehaves rather than at random, as it has no direct stat benefit beyond discipline.

Tip: keep all four stat bars (Hunger, Happy, Energy, Health) out of the red to maximise your care score, which determines which character your pet evolves into at each life stage.

Mini-games

Clicking Play opens the game picker (requires 25 energy). Three games are available:

Game	How to win
Left / Right	3 rounds. The pet hides behind one of two doors. You have 3 seconds per round to pick the correct door. Win 2 out of 3 rounds to win.
Higher or Lower	5 rounds. A number is shown (1–100). Guess whether the next number will be higher or lower. Get 4 out of 5 correct to win.
Coin Flip	Call Heads or Tails. A single coin flip decides the outcome.

Pet Types

Type	Tendency
Codeling	Balanced across all stats
Bytebug	High energy, hunger decays faster
Pixelpup	High happiness, but happiness decays faster
Shellscript	Slow evolver, high base health