goblin mode — Discord rich presence for AI coding

Friends see when Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or Gemini is shipping for you — not when your cursor blinks.

What your Discord card looks like

While Claude (or Codex / Gemini / OpenCode) is working in your terminal:

Watching goblin mode
claude is cooking
afternoon shift

Lines rotate. Time-of-day flips automatically. Your friends DMing you see something is happening — not a stale away dot.

Demo screenshot — coming soon.

Why this beats every other Discord presence extension

Every other one (vscord, discord-vscode, RikoAppDev) watches your editor cursor. The moment you stop typing, they flip to idle — useless during the 2-hour stretches where AI is doing the actual work and you're reading diffs.

goblin mode watches the terminal + Claude Code session files + an optional companion lockfile. As long as the AI is doing something for you, the card stays alive.

Install

VS Code

Search "goblin mode" in the Extensions sidebar (Cmd+Shift+X / Ctrl+Shift+X), or:

ext install leonardomjq.goblin-mode

Cursor / VSCodium / Windsurf

Same — search "goblin mode" in Extensions. Pulls from OpenVSX automatically.

Companion plugin (optional, recommended)

Highest-fidelity AI detection. From this repo's root, in any shell:

claude plugin install ./companion/claude-code-plugin

Or from inside a Claude Code session:

/plugin install ./companion/claude-code-plugin

Detail: companion/claude-code-plugin/README.md.

Privacy

Zero outbound HTTP. Discord IPC only — local socket on macOS/Linux, named pipe on Windows. CI-verified by scripts/check-no-network.mjs on every build.
Hide what you don't want shared. Per-field show / hide / hash controls for workspace name, filename, and git branch.
Silence specific repos, orgs, hosts, or paths. Glob + regex ignore lists.
No analytics. No telemetry. No server. Solo project, MIT licensed.

Anything Discord receives is forwarded by your local Discord client, not by this extension. That hop is governed by Discord's privacy policy.

Configuration

Open Settings → search Agent Mode. Most-used knobs:

Setting	Default	What it does
`agentMode.activityType`	`watching`	Discord card prefix. Switch to `playing` if your client doesn't render Watching.
`agentMode.idleBehavior`	`show`	When no AI is active — `show` rotation copy, or `clear` the card.
`agentMode.privacy.workspaceName`	`show`	`show` / `hide` / `hash`
`agentMode.privacy.filename`	`show`	`show` / `hide`
`agentMode.privacy.gitBranch`	`show`	`show` / `hide`
`agentMode.animations.enabled`	`true`	Frame-cycling rotation.
`agentMode.messages.customPackPath`	`""`	Path to your own JSON copy pack.

Full setting reference lives in package.json under contributes.configuration.

Troubleshooting

Discord shows nothing

Discord desktop is running (not the browser).
Discord Settings → Activity Privacy → "Display current activity as a status message" must be ON.
Enable agentMode.debug.verbose and check the Agent Mode (Discord) output channel.

Card stuck on old copy after upgrade Cursor's extension cache survives Reload Window. Cmd+Q the app, reopen.

More edge cases: docs/CURSOR-COMPAT.md · docs/MULTI-WINDOW.md · Advanced section below.

Advanced

How detection works (multi-tier pipeline)

Highest-fidelity tier with an active signal wins.

Tier	Method	Latency	When available
1	Companion plugin lockfile (`~/.claude/agent-mode-discord.lock`)	<100 ms	Companion plugin installed
2	Shell Integration API (`onDidStartTerminalShellExecution`)	<500 ms	VS Code 1.93+, shell integration enabled
3	Session-file watch (`~/.claude/projects/*.jsonl` mtime)	~1 s	Claude Code project directory exists
4	Terminal output polling	~2 s	Always available (fallback)

Goblin pack — actual lines that ship

AGENT_ACTIVE — primary:   AI is cooking · AI in the kitchen · AI is locked in · AI is building
AGENT_ACTIVE — claude:    claude is cooking · claude in the kitchen · claude is locked in · claude is building
AGENT_ACTIVE — codex:     codex is cooking · codex in the kitchen · codex is locked in
CODING:                   claude awaiting input · claude is paused
IDLE:                     claude on standby · claude is resting

Time-of-day modifier (the second card line): 3am goblin shift · morning service · afternoon shift · evening service.

Ship a custom pack: point agentMode.messages.customPackPath at your own JSON file.

Custom Discord Client ID (bus factor)

By default this extension talks to a Discord Application owned by me (Client ID 1493599126217297981). If I lose access to that account, every install goes silent.

Insulate yourself in 2 minutes:

Discord Developer Portal → New Application.
Copy the Application ID.
VS Code Settings → agentMode.clientId → paste.

Also lets you upload custom large/small assets (your own goblin art).

Env-var override for ad-hoc / CI use: AGENT_MODE_CLIENT_ID=your-id-here code .

Comparison vs other Discord presence extensions

Feature	goblin mode	vscord	discord-vscode	RikoAppDev
Terminal AI agent detection	✅ multi-tier	✗	✗	partial (proposed API)
Stable VS Code APIs only	✅	✅	✅	✗ uses `(vscode as any).chat`
Claude Code companion	✅ lockfile	✗	✗	✗
Multi-agent (claude / codex / gemini / opencode)	✅	✗	✗	partial
Watching activity type default	✅	✗	✗	✗
Bundle size	~220 KB	~2 MB	~1 MB	~500 KB
Privacy controls	show / hide / hash + ignore lists	limited	basic	none
Network requests	none (IPC only)	none	none	unknown

Edge-case troubleshooting (shells, OS specifics)

Cursor on Windows: Shell Integration is unreliable. Falls back to session-file watch automatically. For best results install the companion plugin.
fish shell: Confirm VS Code's integration script is loaded — string match -q "$TERM_PROGRAM" vscode should match. If not, source the script in config.fish.
cmd.exe: Shell Integration not supported. Use PowerShell or the companion plugin.
Flatpak Discord: IPC socket may not be exposed across the sandbox. Use the .deb / .tar.gz Discord install, or:
```
flatpak override --user --filesystem=xdg-run/discord-ipc-*
```

Observability — what's externally visible (no telemetry shipped)

This extension ships zero telemetry. What's visible elsewhere:

Discord Developer Portal (private to the maintainer) shows DAU/MAU and activity counts for Client ID 1493599126217297981. Use your own Client ID per "Custom Discord Client ID" above to opt out entirely.
VS Code Marketplace and OpenVSX show public install counts on the listing pages.

Contributing

Issues + PRs welcome. File an issue first for anything beyond a typo. All code must pass pnpm test and pnpm typecheck.

License

MIT — 2026 Leonardo Jaques

If goblin mode keeps you out of the AFK pit during AI sessions, ⭐ the repo.