Claude Desktop Buddy

Control Claude Desktop from your T-Deck β€” approve permission prompts, watch live session stats, and raise an ASCII pet.

buddy / bd β€” Claude Desktop Remote 

CMD> buddy
CMD> bd
CMD> bd MyAl-Anqa    # custom BLE advertising name

Connects the T-Deck to claude-desktop-buddy over BLE Nordic UART Service (NUS). Once linked, Claude Desktop streams live session data and pending permission prompts to the device. You approve or deny from the keyboard β€” no phone, no desktop interaction needed.

Requires: Claude Desktop with Developer mode β†’ Hardware Buddy enabled.

Screen Layout

The display splits into two panels:

β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”¬β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
β”‚  Left panel (160px) β”‚  Right panel   β”‚
β”‚  Stats + controls   β”‚  ASCII pet     β”‚
β”‚                     β”‚  animation     β”‚
β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”΄β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜

Left panel β€” top to bottom:

Section Content
Header Species name (left) Β· BLE status (right)
mood 4 tiny hearts β€” how fast you approve prompts
fed 10 circles β€” token progress toward next level
energy 5 bars β€” drains over time while bd is running
Level badge Lv N in species body color
approved Lifetime count of approved permission requests
denied Lifetime count of denied requests
napped Total time spent inside bd sessions
tokens Cumulative lifetime output tokens
today Tokens used in the current Claude Desktop session
HUD Approval prompt or idle status message

Right panel: One of 19 ASCII animal species, animating at 5 fps. Species changes based on what Claude is doing (sleeping, busy, attention, celebrating, etc.).

Keys

Key Action
y Approve the pending permission prompt
n Deny the pending permission prompt
space Cycle to the next animal species (disabled while popup is open)
q Quit and return to the CLI

Approval Flow

When Claude Desktop needs permission (file write, bash command, etc.) the display switches to a full-screen terminal popup:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
β•‘  PERMISSION REQUEST                      β•‘
╠══════════════════════════════════════════╣
β•‘  BashTool                                β•‘
β•‘                                          β•‘
β•‘  ping -c 4 192.168.1.1 && traceroute     β•‘
β•‘  192.168.1.1 --max-hops 30              β•‘
β•‘                                          β•‘
β•‘  waiting 8s                              β•‘
β•‘  [y] approve                   [n] deny  β•‘
β•šβ•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•β•

The tool name is displayed at double size if it is 13 chars or shorter. The full command/hint is char-wrapped across as many lines as needed β€” no truncation. The timer turns red after 10 seconds. Pressing y or n sends the decision to Claude Desktop instantly over BLE and the popup closes, restoring the normal pet view.

Note: The hint text shown in the popup is what Claude Desktop’s bridge sends in the hint JSON field. The bridge may truncate very long commands on the desktop side before transmitting β€” this is outside the T-Deck’s control.

Stats Explained

mood β€” 4 hearts

Tracks how quickly you respond to permission prompts. Every y press records how many seconds elapsed since the prompt appeared. The median of your last 8 responses sets the base tier:

Response time Hearts
Under 15s 4 (max)
Under 30s 3
Under 60s 2
Under 2 min 1
Over 2 min 0

If your denial rate exceeds 33%, mood loses 1 tier. If you deny more than you approve, it loses 2 tiers.

fed β€” 10 circles

Token-driven. Claude Desktop sends its cumulative output token count each heartbeat. The fed bar shows progress toward the next level β€” every 5,000 tokens fills one pip, 50,000 tokens = full bar = level up. On level-up the pet plays its celebrate animation and the bar resets.

energy β€” 5 bars

Starts at 5/5 (full) every time you open bd. Drains 1 bar every 2 hours while the command is running. Closing and reopening bd restores it to full β€” each session start counts as a β€œwake”.

Lv N β€” level

lifetime_tokens Γ· 50,000. Increases forever. Level 1 = 50K tokens, Level 2 = 100K, and so on.

approved / denied

Simple lifetime counts of every y and n you’ve pressed. Both affect mood calculation.

napped

Total wall-clock time you’ve spent inside the bd command across all sessions. Accumulates on exit and saves to NVS.

tokens / today

tokens β€” lifetime cumulative output tokens since you first ran bd. Drives level and fed.

today β€” live count from the current Claude Desktop session. Resets when Claude Desktop’s bridge restarts. Not persisted.

Persistence

Stats are stored in NVS (survives power cycles) under the buddy namespace:

Stat Persisted
tokens (lifetime) Yes
level Yes (derived)
approvals Yes
denials Yes
mood history (velocity ring) Yes
napped Yes
energy No β€” resets to 5/5 on each bd open
today tokens No β€” live from bridge

Stats save immediately on significant events (approval, denial, level-up) and on exit. NVS wear is minimal β€” no timer-based saves.

Animal Species

19 species port from the official claude-desktop-buddy project. Each has 7 animated states:

State Trigger
sleep Not connected to Claude Desktop
idle Connected, nothing active
busy 3+ sessions running simultaneously
attention Permission prompt waiting
celebrate Recently completed task Β· level-up
dizzy (reserved)
heart Just approved a prompt within 5s

Press space to cycle through all 19 species. The starting species is random on each bd launch.

Species list: axolotl Β· blob Β· cactus Β· capybara Β· cat Β· chonk Β· dragon Β· duck Β· ghost Β· goose Β· mushroom Β· octopus Β· owl Β· penguin Β· rabbit Β· robot Β· snail Β· trex Β· turtle

Setup

  1. Install claude-desktop-buddy on your desktop.
  2. In Claude Desktop β†’ Developer β†’ Hardware Buddy β†’ enable.
  3. On T-Deck, run bd β€” it advertises as Claude-XXXX (last 2 bytes of BT MAC).
  4. Claude Desktop auto-connects via BLE scan.

The T-Deck advertises continuously. Claude Desktop reconnects automatically after a disconnect.

Technical Details

Property Value
Transport BLE Nordic UART Service (NUS)
Service UUID 6e400001-b5a3-f393-e0a9-e50e24dcca9e
Protocol Line-delimited JSON
BLE stack NimBLE 2.5.x
NVS namespace buddy
Security Plain NUS (no bonding/passkey)

Lock screen: The device can be locked while bd is running. The pet animation and left panel stop drawing immediately (all tft writes are gated). On unlock, both the left panel and the pet sprite redraw automatically β€” no keypress required.

Known quirk: On a cold boot (BLE never initialized), run sbl once before bd to warm up the BLE controller β€” or just wait for the 200ms init delay added to bd which handles this automatically.

Source Files

File Purpose
al-anqa-firmware/buddy.cpp Command entry point, NimBLE NUS server, stats engine, display
al-anqa-firmware/buddy.h Command declaration
al-anqa-firmware/buddy_common.h Shared geometry, colors, Species struct for species files
al-anqa-firmware/M5StickCPlus.h Compatibility shim (typedef LGFX_Sprite TFT_eSprite)
al-anqa-firmware/buddies/*.cpp 19 species animation files (ported unchanged from official repo)