pixtuoid

Why?

Running multiple AI agents in the terminal is like managing a sweatshop you can't see. They type, they wait, they finish — and you have no idea who's doing what unless you scroll through logs like a bureaucrat.

pixtuoid puts them all in a tiny pixel-art office you can watch from above. A little bit Black Mirror, a little bit The Sims — and somehow the most intuitive multi-agent dashboard you'll ever use.

Who's it for?

• You're running 3+ AI coding agents and losing track of who's stuck on what.
• You want a glanceable activity signal without tailing logs.
• You think coding agents should have a vibe.

Quick Start

brew install IvanWng97/pixtuoid/pixtuoid
pixtuoid install-hooks
pixtuoid

In another terminal, start a supported coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, …). A character walks in from the elevator within a second.

Keyboard shortcuts: q quit · p pause · t themes · ? help · ↑↓/jk/PgUp/PgDn floors · click to pin tooltip

Pre-built binaries

Download from GitHub Releases:

| Platform | Tarball | |---|---| | macOS (Apple Silicon) | pixtuoid-v*-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz | | macOS (Intel) | pixtuoid-v*-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz | | Linux (x86_64, static) | pixtuoid-v*-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz | | Linux (ARM64) | pixtuoid-v*-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz |

Debian/Ubuntu .debs (amd64/arm64) are on the same page — install the binary and the hook shim:

sudo dpkg -i pixtuoid_*.deb pixtuoid-hook_*.deb

Cargo

cargo install pixtuoid pixtuoid-hook

From source

git clone https://github.com/IvanWng97/pixtuoid && cd pixtuoid
just build --release

Features

| | Feature | Description | |---|---|---| | 🏢 | Multi-agent office | Each agent session gets a desk; overflow agents auto-fill new floors | | 🛗 | Multi-floor office | PageUp/PageDown/↑↓/jk to navigate floors with slide transition | | 🎭 | Animated characters | Typing, waiting (?), sleeping (z's), walking with A*-routed pathfinding | | 💡 | Per-tool monitor glow | Edit = blue, Bash = orange, Read = cyan — scannable at a glance | | 🎨 | Per-agent identity | Deterministic shirt/hair/skin palette from session hash, 16 curated outfits | | 🌧️ | Weather effects | Rain, storm, snow, fog, overcast, windy — cycles every 10 min + sunset golden hour | | 📊 | Tooltip stats | Hover any agent to see session duration, tool call count, and active time % | | 🏷️ | Furniture tooltips | Hover any item — desks, sofas, plants, vending machine, printer — to see its name | | 🐾 | Office pets | A cat or dog (one per floor) roams desks, pantry, sofas; sleeps near idle agents. Click to pet — pixel-art hearts float up | | ☕ | Coffee run | Idle agents visit the pantry, carry a cup back to their desk. Cup stays while you work; taken on exit | | 💬 | Pantry chitchat | 2+ idle agents at the same waypoint trigger speech bubbles with dev-humor snippets | | 🛡️ | Hook-safe | The shim always exits 0 — a stuck visualizer can never block your agent |

Supported Tools

| Tool | Status | Notes | |---|---|---| | Claude Code | ✅ Supported | Hook shim + JSONL watcher | | Antigravity CLI | ✅ Supported | JSONL watcher | | Codex CLI | ✅ Supported | Hook shim + JSONL watcher (hook/JSONL coalesce on session UUID) | | Copilot CLI | 🔜 Planned | Identical event names | | OpenCode | 🔜 Planned | Any LLM (DeepSeek / GPT / Claude / Gemini) | | Cursor CLI | 🔜 Planned | NDJSON stream |

Adding a new tool? Implement the Source trait — one file, one channel, done.

Themes & Configuration

Press t to switch themes with live preview. Your choice persists across sessions. 6 built-in:

Settings live in ~/.config/pixtuoid/config.toml — theme, desk cap, custom pet names, and sprite packs. CLI flags override the file (pixtuoid run --theme dracula). See docs/CONFIGURATION.md for the full key reference (defaults, system-managed keys) and the custom sprite-pack workflow — or browse it live at /config.

How It Works

How pixtuoid works — the architecture → — the producer → reducer → renderer pipeline across three Rust crates, with the data-flow diagram. Single source: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md (renders on the site and on GitHub).

v0.4.0 renamed the project from ascii-agents to pixtuoid.

What changed

| Before (v0.3.x) | After (v0.4.0) | |---|---| | ascii-agents binary | pixtuoid | | ascii-agents-hook shim | pixtuoid-hook | | ~/.config/ascii-agents/ | ~/.config/pixtuoid/ | | ~/.cache/ascii-agents/ | ~/.cache/pixtuoid/ | | /tmp/ascii-agents-{uid}.sock | /tmp/pixtuoid-{uid}.sock | | _ascii_agents hook key in settings.json | _pixtuoid |

Upgrade steps

1. Install the new version:

   brew untap IvanWng97/ascii-agents 2>/dev/null
   brew install IvanWng97/pixtuoid/pixtuoid
   # or: cargo install pixtuoid pixtuoid-hook
   

2. Re-register hooks (replaces old ascii-agents-hook entries automatically):

   pixtuoid install-hooks
   

3. Migrate config (optional — only if you customized config.toml):

   mkdir -p ~/.config/pixtuoid
   mv ~/.config/ascii-agents/config.toml ~/.config/pixtuoid/config.toml
   

GitHub links: The old IvanWng97/ascii-agents URL automatically redirects to IvanWng97/pixtuoid. Existing bookmarks and stars carry over.

Contributing

PRs welcome — especially new themes and Source adapters for other agent CLIs (Copilot, Cursor, OpenCode). See CONTRIBUTING.md for the build/test workflow, conventions, the review process, and how to add a new agent CLI. Architecture and the load-bearing invariants live in CLAUDE.md.

Acknowledgments

Inspired by pixel-agents (VS Code), clawd-on-desk (desktop pet), and Claude Code's Buddy.

Support

If you enjoy pixtuoid, consider buying me a coffee :)

License

MIT