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Varshith V Hegde
Varshith V Hegde Subscriber

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PawBot - An AI Desktop Puppy That Eats Your Files 🐾

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge

DEV Weekend Challenge: Dog Days Edition Submission 🐕

This is a submission for Weekend Challenge: Dog Days Edition

What I Built

Remember Neko the cat and those Tamagotchi desktop pets from the 90s? I rebuilt that magic for 2026 — except your pet is a golden retriever puppy powered by an LLM.

PawBot is a Chrome extension + browser demo where a cute pixel puppy:

  • 🐕 Roams your screen like a classic desktop pet
  • 🏃 Chases your cursor when you get close
  • 🍖 Eats anything you drop — PDFs, code files, emoji, pasted text
  • 💬 Barks back with short, mood-aware responses via Google Gemini
  • 😴 Falls asleep if you ignore it too long (with Zzz particles!)
  • ❤️ Reacts to pets — click to pet, double-click to wave

Feed it a .pdf and it might say "Mmm, crunchy homework!" Ignore it for 40 seconds and it curls up with sad puppy eyes.

PawBot idle sprite
PawBot eating
PawBot barking

Demo

Full walkthrough on YouTube:

Quick try locally:

git clone https://github.com/Varshithvhegde/pawbot.git
cd pawbot/web
python3 -m http.server 8080
# → http://localhost:8080
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Or load the Chrome extension: clone the repo → ./scripts/sync-extension.sh → Load unpacked → select the extension/ folder.

Code

GitHub logo Varshithvhegde / pawbot

AI desktop puppy Chrome extension — pixel pet that eats your files and barks with Google Gemini

PawBot 🐾

An AI desktop puppy that lives in your browser. A Tamagotchi/Neko-style pixel pet that roams your screen, chases your cursor, eats files & emoji you drop, and barks mood-aware responses powered by Google Gemini.

Built for the DEV Weekend Challenge: Dog Days Edition.

PawBot pixel puppy

Demo

🎬 Watch on YouTube · 📝 DEV submission · 🔗 GitHub

Features






































Feature Description
🐕 Pixel puppy
 Full sprite animations — idle, walk, run, eat, sleep, bark, wave
🍖 Feed anything
 Drop files, emoji, or paste text — pup chases food then eats it
🏃 Chase mechanics
 Food falls from above → pup runs to it → 4-frame eat animation
💬 AI barks
 Google Gemini generates short mood-based responses
😴 Sleep mode
 Ignore pup 40s → falls asleep with Zzz particles
❤️ Pet & wave
 Click to pet, double-click to wave paw
⌨️ Hotkeys
F throw treat · B bark · Esc
…



View on GitHub


Repo: github.com/Varshithvhegde/pawbot

How I Built It

Architecture 

Browser tab
    │
    ├── Content script (bundled IIFE via esbuild)
    │       └── Shadow DOM canvas overlay (immune to page CSS)
    │
    ├── Pet engine (Canvas 2D state machine)
    │       idle → walk → run → eat → sleep → bark → wave
    │
    ├── Sprite loader (33 AI-generated pixel frames)
    │
    └── Bark engine → Google Gemini API
            mood + hunger + last meal → short bark text
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Technical decisions

Decision Why
Vanilla JS + Canvas Zero build step for the web demo; screen-recording friendly
Shadow DOM overlay Page CSS can't hide the pup (learned this the hard way on AI Studio)
esbuild bundle Chrome content scripts can't use ES import — single bundled file fixes it
AI sprite sheet Generated pixel art, auto-sliced with a Python script into 33 transparent PNGs
Chase-then-eat flow Food drops → pup runs → 4-frame eat animation → crumb particles
Fallback barks Works offline without an API key; Gemini enhances when configured

Sprite animations (all 33 frames used!)

Walk animation frame
Run animation frame
Sleep animation frame
Happy mood

State Sprites
Idle 4-frame breathing loop
Walk / Run Directional left & right sprites
Eat 4-frame chew cycle + flying food emoji
Sleep Curled up + floating Zzz particles
Mood Happy, sad, curious, excited overlays
Bark Shows while AI speech bubble is active
Wave Paw idle + 3-frame wave on pet/double-click

Controls

Action How
Feed Drag & drop file or emoji
Feed Paste text/emoji
Pet Click the puppy
Wave Double-click
Throw treat Press F
Bark Press B

Live hunger & happiness HUD in the bottom-left corner.

Prize Categories

✅ Best Use of Google AI

PawBot uses Google Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite — not as a chatbot, but as a personality engine for a desktop pet.

Every bark sends real context to Gemini:

Event Context sent to Gemini Example bark
Fed a .py file "Just ate: main.py (file)", mood: happy "Python for breakfast? Bold choice."
Ignored 40s+ mood: lonely, ignoredMs: 45000 "...hello? I saved you a spot."
Poked happiness: 85, mood: excited "Hehe! Belly rubs detected!"
Hungry hunger: 82/100 "Is that food? IS THAT FOOD?"

Free API key from Google AI Studio → paste in extension popup. Falls back to canned barks if no key is set.

What's next

  • 🔊 ElevenLabs bark sounds
  • 🐩 Multiple dog breeds
  • 🦊 Firefox extension

Thanks for reading! If PawBot made you smile, leave a 🐾 in the comments.

Built for International Dog Day 🐕 · DEV Weekend Challenge: Dog Days Edition

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