A fork of Claude Island that replaces the crab with a pixel-art turtle named Sheldon.
Same great Dynamic Island notifications for Claude Code, now with a living, reactive companion.
Sheldon on his grass island at night, with twinkling stars and his flower
The crab is great. We totally get why people love it. But we're turtle people. If you are too, this fork is for you.
This fork keeps all of Claude Island's core functionality (session monitoring, permission approvals, chat history, auto-setup) and adds a character layer on top.
A pixel-art turtle who lives on a grass island spanning both sides of the notch. He's not decoration. He reacts to what Claude is doing.
- Walks back and forth when Claude is processing, disappearing behind the notch and reappearing on the other side
- Eats a flower that regrows, replacing the processing spinner with something you actually want to watch
- Follows your cursor when idle, turning to face the mouse when it's near the notch
- Sleeps when no sessions are active (legs retract, eyes close, gentle breathing)
- Blinks, fidgets, and stretches with idle animations that make him feel alive
- Click him to make him spin
Sheldon approaching his flower on a starry night
Sheldon's mood changes based on what's happening in your Claude sessions:
| Emotion | Trigger | Visual |
|---|---|---|
| Happy | Task completed | Bright green shell, warm sky |
| Sad | Errors | Muted blue-grey shell, cool tones |
| Excited | Milestones | Golden shell, vibrant sky |
| Confused | Retries | Purple-grey shell |
| Curious | Research/exploration | Blue-tinted shell |
| Sob | Repeated failures | Dark muted tones |
| Neutral | Default | Standard green |
Emotions decay quickly so they feel like reactions, not permanent moods.
Real astronomical sunrise and sunset times drive the day/night cycle. No hardcoded hours.
- Day: Blue sky, clouds, butterflies
- Dawn/Dusk: 75-minute gradual transitions
- Night: Dark sky, twinkling stars, moon, fireflies
- Sheldon puts on a nightcap at midnight
Say "feed Sheldon" or "Sheldon's hungry" in Claude Code. A spinach bowl appears. Sheldon walks over, eats the leaves one by one with an excited tail wag, then does happy hops with sparkles.
The island is alive beyond Sheldon:
- Seasonal particles, shooting stars, rainbows
- Birds, worms, snails, mushrooms
- Rain with puddles
- Campfire warmth
- Music notes (when connected to audio)
- Hats: nightcap (midnight), santa (December), party hat (milestones), top hat (New Year)
- Permission bounce: Sheldon bounces when approval is needed, so you notice it
- AskUserQuestion auto-open: Notch opens automatically and navigates to the chat when Claude asks a question (submitted as upstream PR #88)
- Better hit targets: Allow/Deny buttons are easier to click
- Mixpanel removed: No analytics, no TCC permission dialogs
Download from releases or build from source:
xcodebuild -scheme ClaudeIsland -configuration Release build- macOS 15.6+
- Claude Code CLI
Same as upstream Claude Island: hooks in ~/.claude/hooks/ communicate session state via a Unix socket. The app listens for events and displays them in the notch overlay. Sheldon's behavior layer reads the same events to drive animations and emotions.
Built on top of farouqaldori/claude-island. All the hard work on session monitoring, hook architecture, and the notch UI is theirs. We just added a turtle.
Apache 2.0